Epox goes LED crazy

EPOX TOLD ME IN JANUARY that it was starting to beef up their US presence again, and going to make a decent show of it. Well, it looks like that time has arrived, Computex had it showing off a bunch of cool stuff, and some well thought out tweaks.

The most impressive was the 5NVA+SLI board, a LGA775 performance oriented mobo, and it's AMD equivalent. The main thing that differentiates this board from the horde of NVidia SLI boards is a neat set of LEDs. It has two sets, the first is a set of coloured memory usage LEDs, such lights tell you when your RAM is being used much like the Corsair version on the DIMM. This one is on the mobo though.

The other set is a bunch of blue LEDs that indicate if the RAM, video card, or CPU have problems. If one is off, you have a problem. If all are off, you have at least three problems, possibly more, and if you are really lucky, a fire. Either way, it can be handy in diagnosing troubling no-boot issues. There is also a port 80 diagnostic card built in, as is the rage these days on high end boards.

Epox also had a new brand called Piston V, a fancy name for five phase power. There were two types, one with the normal caps and coils, and one with a fancy looking square coil, supposedly a better quality component. Whatever the case, I am all for better and cleaner power, we have had enough problems with blown caps over the last two years or so.

Lastly, we come to some really neat little boards, all of which have a good niche to play in. First is the 5VEAI, a VIA based mobo with both AGP and PCIe. While not a screaming graphics monster, it is more than adequate as a transitional upgrade board for those who don't want to buy new everything.

Then we have the 8NPA3J, and I am sure you know what it is simply by reading the name. It is a SLI board for S754! This is a distinct need in my book, and as far as I am aware a real first. Congratulations to Epox for pulling this off. µ