Epox man says adopt 64-bit or perish

We asked Andrew some questions and got some interesting answers.

Q Can you give me a brief account of Epox as a group including some milestones and important figures?
A EPoX Computer was established in February 1995 with a very strong heading for quality and R & D and rapidly became a key figure as a second tier mainboard manufacturer. With such strength in R & D, EPoX very quickly became a pioneer for new and innovative technologies that many of us now take for granted. Keyboard Power On is a feature that EPoX introduced way back before the wheel was invented so to speak and the integration of the P80P debug LED onto the PCB has since the days of the i440BX chipset long been a pre-cursor for many channel partners to use EPoX products for their wealth of instantly available diagnostic information. In Europe many people will recognize the likes of myself and Chris Van Den Dool from our European Headquarters amongst other people - we tend to be a lot less like other Taiwanese companies who employ double glazing sales people to sell what is actually the most technical component of a computer system. We feel that this is a great strength.

Another strength that we have is our strong OEM partnering that people on the outside don't see - EpoX is more than just an overclockers dream -we make some of the most stable OEM product out there for mass integration. Go into most UK major high street stores and the PC you see will have an EPoX board in there - such is the trust and renown of the quality that they are made with.

People don't realise EPoX is also a key supplier of Bluetooth equipment and currently second to only some small Finnish mobile manufacturer (? ;) ) as UK supplier of Bluetooth headsets. We manufacture headsets, USB dongles, printer adaptors and a whole range of other useful kit that has helped to make Bluetooth what it is today.

I have myself now been working for EPoX in the UK for over three years. I've always been enthusiastic about hardware and moreover the technology behind components and future components at electronics level, but found myself at the age of 25 years old at University studying Polymer Science and thinking that a life of long-chain-repeaters and master-batch (terms of that trade) weren't really my thing. At this same time I was very actively running wildandyc.co.uk, a hardware review site with a slant of wackiness and freshness whilst offering some very detailed scope.

Some four or five years ago articles were published on SOI technology, Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering - way ahead of the time and testament to the geek studying I'd undergone to fulfil my needs as a now web-editor. It was from this position and through reviewing EPoX mainboards that I did eventually actually begin working for EPoX and consequently ditched the the website. I have an EPoX SFF ex5-300s with 9800Pro and 3GHz P4 for some jobbing, a very tiny laptop for most of my e-mail work, and for sheer bragging rights a water-cooled EP-8KDA3+ with 3700+, 1GB of memory and a X800Pro that is benchmarking over 29,000 in 3DMark2001 at every attempt - fully stable all of the time.

Whilst there are perhaps many systems out there that will beat me for 3DMark scores on the ORB, this is a stable running system on the end of my desk that's powered 24/7 without a hitch - and this box is running a HTT of 285Mhz x 4 all of the time - the X800 Pro also overclocked to 585/1182MHz!

Q What are the strengths of the company in terms of products provided and what competitive advantage do you offer as compared to your competitors?
A EPoX has always been strong in terms of the fact that through experience and extended R & D, we manufacture mainboards with immense stability and build quality. As the first manufacturer of a socket A mainboard with true 3 phase power switching, we have continually improved on all previous voltage regulation circuits to offer some excellent overclocking products that remain true and real. Whilst many competitors seem to rely upon fluorescent colours or ill-thought up catch phrases for component coolers that are needed to make up for poor VRM implementation, EPoX provides a product that is desired for all of the right reasons - not because it looks pretty in pink!

Q How does Epox view the future of hardware computing?
A I think that we are presently at such a great cross-roads whereby we have some amazing things that are just either emerging or starting to make a breakthrough. Hypertransport is now showing its true worth as not only a tunnel link but also an excellent way to integrate such high bandwidth devices as Gb Ethernet and multiple channel RAID configurations. The performance of our NF3 250GB and new NForce 2 Ultra 400 with MCP-RAID chipsets is a great example of how technology can be implemented to perform well with a little thought and imagination.

Nvidia's chipset work now has to be considered to be on a par of that of Intel's - and our continuing partnership with them and success of all of our NForce based products is a combination of our R&D and theirs - a killer force indeed! On primarily the Intel side, the appearance of PCI-Express onto the scene has caused a lot of noise but not yet many ruptions. I think that once SiS, ATi and VIA follow with their competing chipsets with PCI-Express support in bulk the whole market will take off.

Add to this LGA775 cpu's, DDR2 & the now partial implementation of the SATA-2 specification in new Maxtor drives and the ICH6R and we really are starting to move. I think 2004 has seen more useful innovation in the root of the hardare (chipset orientated) than we have seen really since the Athlon 550 cast its shadow on many a gamers desktop along side a GeForce 256.

Q Epox has been very slow to introduce LGA775 motherboards. Your various international websites do not have any such products. What are the reasons?
A I think that the only board that we actively suggest at this very moment in time is the EP-5EGA+, a 915G based board that is able to do the PCI Express triggering trick. Some websites suggested that the way to get a 915/925 board to go high FSB was voltage - that's a complete myth - the way to it is by procedural triggering at POST - the board initiates the PCI Express interfaces differently to those other mainboard manufacturers claiming to have beaten the lock through "brute force".

Back to the point - as there has been little demand at present for product based upon socket 775 (likely due to the fact the CPU's are rare in the wild), there has been little requirement for them in the channel. We have actively been working with these products in OEM however as their CPU supply is different to that of the general channel. So whilst it doesn't seem that we are overly active from the outset, a great deal goes on under the surface for sure!

Q Unlike other Taiwanese firms, Epox has not introduced a graphics line up although such a thing was announced back in February. Any news for us?
A Whilst we did indeed show VGA cards at CeBit this year, we have now consolidated this area of the business to the OEM sector.

Q 64-bitness seems to have got the whole world talking, what is Epox offering for 64-bit wannabees and what features will get them running to you?
A EPoX has long been running with the ball on 64bit processor (I remember some spikey haried Bosnian looking at our running system back at CeBit in 2003) and has good VIA K8T800 based products and absolutely fantastic NF3 250GB and NF3 250Ultra products to offer at present. We have the overclocking ability to run easily past a combined 1200Mhz HTT (300MHz x 4). With the ever growing Linux community and wide range availability of 64bit distributions, a growing customer base of power users seems to be emerging.

With this unprecedented amount of power now available at such small outlays - any integrator not supply A64 systems needs to really think about completely going back to the drawing board or shutting up shop! Our key offerings are the EP-8KDA3+ (NF3 250GB) and EP-9NDA3+ (NF3 250Ultra) - probably 2 of the best overclocking and enthusiast Athlon 64 products in existence, whilst many others BIOS may have the same features as ours, rest assured that you can use ours very near their limits rather than just having the options there for visual effect. When you buy an EPoX, you could say that buy a Green BMW, not a Red MR2.

Q Any particular products that you would like to highlight?
A Other than the EP-8KDA3+ and EP-9NDA3+ mentioned above, I'd like to mention the EP-8RDA6+Pro that is to be available in the next couple of days based on the new NF2 southbridge RAID & GBe implementation - really proof that socket A is still definitely alive and kicking and has a great deal to offer. It has to be said that the EP-8RDA6+Pro is certainly the most integrated socket A mainboard ever made and probably the most desirable. Note that it doesn't have anything remotely pink or pretty about it, but it does have a triple buck triple phase power arrangement that wipes the floor with anything ever made by any other manufacturer - one cool cookie. Add to this the EP-5EGA+ that we've already mentioned overcomes the so called overclocking lock of 915/925 and you've got my favourite boards! µ