In the heyday of the AMD K7 processor, there were a few motherboard manufacturers that stood out because they continually produced some of the best enthusiast-class boards. In my opinion, Epox is definitely one of them. Yet, what propelled Epox into the spotlight seems to be fading. The company's tenacity has been tamed, which I suppose just has to do with surviving in an already electronics crowded market. What a pity. In any case, as the end for the AMD K7 draws ever closer, Epox is set to release the brand new EP-8RDA6+ PRO socket A motherboard; a retro-board with many current features to boast about.

This difference is that this time around, the AMD K7 CPU is being teamed up with an nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, and the new and improved nVidia MCP Gb which has both native Gigabit MAC, IDE and Serial ATA RAID support.

Other little goodies include a built in hardware firewall, as well as nVidia's special nVRAID software which bridges RAID on both Serial ATA and regular Parallel IDE drives at the same time!

The Epox 8RDA6+ PRO motherboard supports any Socket 462/A Athlon or AthlonXP processor, and its three DIMM slots can handle up to 3GB of PC3200 unbuffered DDR memory. In terms of onboard goodies, there's an additional Serial ATA RAID controller, IEEE 1394a Firewire, 7.1-channel AC'97 audio and of course the ever useful Port 80 diagnostics card.

Epox 8RDA6+ PRO Motherboard Includes: Users Manual, Quick Installation Guide, Driver CD, Two Purple Rounded Ultra/133 IDE Cables, One Floppy Drive Cable, Two Serial ATA Cables, Two molex to Serial ATA power cables, MOSFET heatsinks, I/O Backplate, Screwdriver, COM/Game port bracket, USB Bracket, IEEE1394a Bracket

Epox has never really gotten into the coloured PCB game and the 8RDA6+ PRO is a typical green. It seems these days that most motherboards are pretty well laid out and the 8RDA6+ PRO is no exception. Epox places all the headers/ports by the lower edge of the motherboard, and round back by the I/O shield we find a RCA SP/DIF, optical SP/DIF, four USB2.0 jacks, and the 7.1-channel audio setup.

If you consider yourself a tweaker and like to muck around overclocking, you'll appreciate the Port 80 diagnostics card. Using numbered codes, it displays information about memory errors, problems with the CPU, or even faults relating to the videocard.

In fact, after using a board with the Port 80 card, it's often difficult to move back to a motherboard without it!

As a bonus, Epox have tossed in a set of nice rounded IDE cables with the 8RDA6+ PRO motherboard. with their boards. These big purple cables are nice and moldable, and in addition to this, the 8RDA6+ PRO even comes with a small phillips / slot screw driver, and set of blue MOSFET heatsinks.