First off, let’s start with the box which has a 3D futuristic look to it. It’s a nice looking box with plenty of info about the board.
The board comes with all the standard stuff, not pictured but included. We’ve got the manual, USB headers (for 2 more USB ports), floppy cable, I/O plate, and a quick reference guide which shows the board and basically how to install it. The motherboard has a pretty standard I/O layout with serial, parallel, PS/2, USB, sound, and LAN. Unfortunately, I did not receive the extra header that allows this motherboard to have 5.1 audio, so onboard audio is confined only to stereo.
The RAM slots, IDE connectors, and ATX connector are all all in a good location. In the second picture we can see the northbridge (under the heatsink) and the 12v power connector. As you can see there is a passive heatsink on the northbridge to keep it cool. I prefer the passive heatsinks on the northbridge just because it does not add any additional noise to the system.
