AOpen i915Pa-EFRII Review --- TheThirdMedia Hardware

AOpen i915Pa-EFRII (The Bad)

While the board does have its niggling faults, there isn't much to complain about. AOpen has done a pretty decent job with the layout and design, which shows some thought had gone into component placement. The only slight identifiable problems are the location of several I/O headers. For example, the Front Audio Panel header is still located at the far rear of the board. Graphics cards tend to get easily loosened, which is why most manufacturers include a simple latch or lock at one end of the slot to make sure the card stays secure. However, the PCIe x16 slot on the i915Pa-EFRII does not feature such a lock. As such, users will need to be mindful when installing or removing other components, just to make sure that the graphics card is still sitting properly within the slot.

A simple PCIe x16 slot, but without a latch or lock to secure graphic cards in place.

Front Panel Audio connector again located all the way at the rear. S/PDIF header is available too, but no brackets provided.

We did not run into any serious difficulties or stability problems with the i915Pa-EFRII, but we found that the BIOS lacks a crucial feature to adjust or lock the PCI Express bus frequency. The running frequency of the PCI Express bus makes a difference in stable overclocking, especially with the i915P Express chipsets. Without this feature, we found that overclocking with the i915Pa-EFRII is severely limited.

Although the i915Pa-EFRII comes with an adequate accessory bundle, extra SATA cables would have been more welcomed. On the software front, AOpen only offers some rudimentary utilities for hardware monitoring and tweaking. The only software of note is a full version of Symantec Norton Anti-Virus 2004 that comes in a separate CD installer and has a 90-days of live updates. Next up is the DDR-based AOpen i915Pa-E motherboard with some subtle differences..

Decent cable bundle, but with six SATA connectors onboard, SATA cables are insufficient.

Norton Anti-Virus 2004 is the only bundled software provided.

Tested & Certified Components
Graphics Card MSI RX600XT-TD128
Memory 2 x 512MB Kingston DDR2-533
Power Supply Unit AcBel 400W (API4PC01)
Cooler CoolerMaster CI5-9HDPA-01
Hard Disk Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB SATA

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