865PE/875P Motherboard Roundup June 2003 - Part 1: 20-way Shootout

Epox 4PCA3+

The 4PCA3+ is in a class of its own when it comes to IDE support. Epox makes what we think is an excellent choice in HighPoint's latest and great ATA133 PCI RAID controller, the HPT374. This controller is capable of supporting eight independent disk drives, which in of itself would be stellar if it wasn't just limited to disk drives (optical drives would have been a nice addition, though it would've been impossible for Epox to choose any other IDE RAID controller capable of supporting as many drives). So including the ICH5R Serial ATA connectors, Primary/Secondary IDE connectors, and HPT374 connectors the 4PCA3+ is capable of supporting a record setting total of fourteen disk drives and/or hard drives. How many people will actually have fourteen drives in their system? Not many, but if it were me I'm sure I'd find a way to use at least nine or ten of those fourteen possible drives/ I might even find myself wanting more, as the 4PCA3+ can only support four ATAPI (optical drives), via the Primary/Secondary IDE connectors. That will be extended to six possible ATAPI drives once SATA optical drives start hitting the market.

Not surprisingly Epox laid out their 4PCA3+ BIOS exactly the same way and with exactly the same features as their 865PE motherboard, the 4PDA2+. Therefore, you will get the same max FSB of 350MHz, an especially unique and tasty VDIMM maximum of 3.30V and a VAGP max of 2.20V, which is yet another noteworthy BIOS feature (though not uncommon among Epox motherboards). While the initial 4PCA3+ BIOS releases were limited to a 1.60 Vcore like a lot of 875P motherboards were (some still are), the latest 4PCA3+ BIOS adds Vcore support up to 1.85V.

There are only a few minor negative things to say about the 4PCA3. Feature-wise the 4PCA3+ would have been more attractive with CSA support and onboard IEEE 1394 FireWire, both pretty standard features with any high-end motherboard. However very few users need CSA support (as most people aren't transferring large amounts of data over Gigabit Ethernet) and IEEE 1394 FireWire isn't as necessary a feature if you've already got eight USB 2.0 ports to choose from. Though we can certainly see some users that would desire FireWire, especially heavy DV camera users. One negative aspect of the 4PCA3+ actually has nothing to do with the motherboard itself, but its current availability, which is absolutely none at all in the U.S. We doubt any other parts of the world have the 4PCA3+ available and ready to ship in any kind of volume.