Overclocking with the EPoX 8K9A2+ was very simple and very impressive. Because every setting that you would need to change to overclock can be done through the BIOS there is no need to open up your case and mess with jumpers or DIP switches.
The way I always overclock is to get the highest possible FSB while keeping my system stable and increasing the overall speed of my CPU in Mhz. Because of all the voltage and memory options with this motherboard I had no problem at all overclocking my 1800+ Thoroughbred to 1.780Ghz with a FSB of 200! All of the memory settings were at the fastest as well, 2-2-2-1CMD 4-way bank interleave.
I had to kick the Vcore up to 1.75v and the VDIMM up to 2.90v but that’s normal for overclocking and was simple because of the BIOS. The coolest thing by far about this motherboard as far as overclocking is concerned has to be the fact that it can unlock a B core Thoroughbred. No more do you have to mess with filling in the tiny gaps and connecting the bridges, just go into the BIOS and change the multiplier. I would have been overclock even more if I had put a watercooling system on this motherboard and cranked the voltage even more.
Conclusion
I have always loved EPoX motherboards because they offer so much and this 8K9A2+ is better than the previous boards I have used. This motherboard was able to handle 200FSB without a sweat. The BIOS has so many memory options and lets you change the voltages to very high levels. You can change the multiplier in the BIOS without even unlocking your CPU.
The board has 6 PCI slots, 8x AGP, tons of USB, IDE RAID, SATA RAID, onboard LAN, onboard sound, a great layout and cool northbridge fan. There are so many things about this motherboard that I like and so little that I do not like, the only thing I really didn’t like was the fact that a thermal pad was used on the northbridge and that the DIMM slots were too close to the AGP slot.
Both of these things are very minor issues and don’t even begin to take down the quality of this motherboard. Overall I am giving this motherboard a 10/10 and awarding it the OCmodshop Seal of Approval. I would like to thank EPoX for giving me this motherboard to review.
Pros
- Awesome overclocker
- Can change multiplier without unlocking
- Lots of memory tweaking options
- Vcore up to 2.00v
- VDIMM up to 3.20v
- 6 PCI with no CNR or AMR
- Onboard IDE ATA-133 RAID
- Serial ATA capable of RAID
- Onboard LAN
- 6 USB 2.0 ports
- AGP 8x
- LED fan on the northbridge
- Great documentation provided
- Rounded cables included
Cons
- DIMM slots too close to video card
- Thermal pad used on northbridge
