ECS KA3MVP Extreme Motherboard – ECS Tries Enthusiast

The Board: A Closer Look

When it comes to high-end, uber-overclocking, record-breaking motherboard manufacturers, you usually do not think about the ECS. ECS has been a huge OEM for many years, and has never really produced anything that would be considered top-dog as far as performance goes. They did have the K7S5A that may bring back alot of memories (good and bad) for those that have been in the overclocking scene for awhile. I went through a few of those boards myself! Today, we have the ECS KA3MVP Extreme motherboard to look at. ECS touts this board, as the name suggests, as an MVP board and they say it is extreme. Well, let’s take a look at the board and see if it is all that!

Specifications

CPU Socket AM2 with AMD Athlon 64 FX/ Athlon 64/ Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core/ Sempron processor Support for 64-bit extended operating systems Support transfer rate of 2000/1600/1200/800/400 mega-transfers per second. Highly overclockable and robust Hypertransport interface

CHIPSET ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200 North Bridge: ATI RD580 South Bridge: ATI SB600

MEMORY Dual-channel DDR2 memory architecture 4 x 240-pin DDR2 DIMM socket support up to 32GB Support DDR2 800/667/533/400 DDR2 SDRAM

EXPANSION SLOT 2 x PCI Express x16 slots 1 x PCI Express x1 slot 2 x PCI slots

STORAGE Supported by SB600 — 2 x Ultra DMA133/100/66/33 device — 4 x Serial ATA2 devices — RAID0, RAID1, RAID10 configuration Supported by JMB363 — 2 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices — 2 x Serial ATA2 devices — RAID0, RAID1& RAID 0+1 configuration — Support NCQ&eSATA & Hot plug&Port Multiplier

AUDIO Realtek ALC883 8-channel audio CODEC

IEEE 1394a VIA VT6308P support 2 x IEEE1394a ports

DUAL LAN Agere E1310I Gigabit LAN controller Realtek 8100C 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet controller

REAR PANEL I/O 1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors 4 x USB ports 2 x RJ45 LAN connectors 1 x Serial port (COM1) 1 x Audio port (Line-in,4x Line-out, Mic_in) 2 x Digital SPDIF (Optical & Coaxial) out

INTERNAL I/O CONNECTORS & HEADERS 1 x 24-pin ATX Power Supply connector 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V connector 1 x Auxiliary 4-pin +12V connector 2 x IDE connectors 1 x FDD connector 6 x Serial ATA connectors 1 x Speaker header 1 x IrDA for SIR header 2 x 1394a headers 3 x USB 2.0 headers support additional 6 USB ports 1 x Front panel switch/LED header 1 x Front panel audio header CD in header 1 x 26-pin LPT header CPU / Chassis FAN headers 1x CPUFAN/1x SYSFAN/3x CASFAN connectors

SYSTEM BIOS Award BIOS with 4Mb Flash ROM Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI Supports ACPI revision 1.0 specification

FORM FACTOR ATX Size 305mm*244mm