The EPoX 4PDA5+ shows pretty good scores. As we can judge from the scores obtained. EPoX has successfully hacked the 865PE to reach the levels of 875P mainboard. As we inspect the scores, we see that EPoX 4PDA5+ is slightly more conservative with optimised ram timings for Dual DDR modules. This is probably to increase compatibility with most RAMs for best stability and performance.

As we can see from the charts, the results are quite close to its nearest competitor which is the DFI mainboard. Overall it has a better lead compared to the boards based on other chipsets.

In terms of features, EPoX 4PDA5+ breaks away from tradition and incorporate a ICH 4 south bridge instead of the ICH 5R. This could have lead to lower costs. In compensation, it introduced the SilconImage SI3114 to support RAID 0,1,10,5 with 4 SATA ports. On top of that, it supports Gigabit Ethernet. Well, some people might prefer all this functions to be in the south bridge because of better bandwidth. Yes, but we are talking about a desktop board, not a server board. Thus we might need to get this clarified.

Overclocking wise, this board has lots of voltage adjustments. All the ram timings are adjustable and there are special settings to enable CPC etc. Vdimm, Vcore, VAGP are all adjustable and the range is wide enough for the craziest overclockers out there. FSB is also up to 350 and there is FIX PCI/AGP option. In our own tests, we noticed that the default BIOS runs 3 MHz higher than its rated. Thus when we overclock to 275MHz, we were actually running 278MHz. We managed to get the board running 270MHz steadily at 5:4 at CAS 2, 5-2-2.

Overall, a very stable and overclockable board that comes with useful tools like the screwdriver and heatsinks. I would recommend this to those who want to purchase a P4 board.

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Pros 好处:

• 8 Channel audio
• USB 2.0 
• Gigabit Ethernet
• 4 ports SATA RAID 0/1/10/5
• Overclocking features, Vdimm, Vagp, Vcore
• Diagnostic LED

Cons 坏处:

• No IDE RAID
• No active cooling of Heatsink

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10 stars.

Innovation Award