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AOpen XC Cube EX915 Starting out with the EX915’s heatsink we find a copper finned heatpipe design covered with a black three sided shroud. There are only two fan headers on the EX915's mainboard. The CPU fan header can be seen below with the cooling fan plugged in it. The system fan is obscured from view below and is up against the opposite side of the heatsink.
Back to the heatsink; the shroud directs air over the fins and out the exhaust grate we noted earlier. The base was reasonably smooth and showed no imperfections. A small piece of thermal interface material (TIM) is pre-applied to the heatsink’s base. The base itself conducts heat up to the copper convection fins via heatpipes to increase the efficiency of the cooler.
Here we can see the LGA 775 Socket T. For those of you who haven’t seen or read about the LGA 775 yet, the pins are on the mainboard as opposed to the processor as we are used to. The pic below on the right is the underside of the 2.8GHz P4 we have for this unit. Look ma’ no pins. AOpen recommends prior to installing a processor in the EX915 that you pull the thermal probe up a bit. This is to ensure that adequate contact is made. AOpen utilizes what they call their SilentTek technology. This is a system of the mainboard adjusting a fan’s speed based on the temperature detected. If you machine is idle the fan spins at a low rate. If you are under full load the fan speed increases as your CPU’s temperature does.
We find two DIMM slots supporting dual channel DDR400/333 in the EX915, each DIMM capable of handling up to a gig stick of RAM. Also in the first picture below is the oversized aluminum heatsink atop the i915 chipset. AOpen has opted for a passive solution here to keep noise to a minimum. I’m not so sure of this decision myself. While in operation, the Northbridge cooler was too hot to touch. This was both when it was running onboard video and when an add in VGA card was present. Partially obscured to the left of this pic is the single IDE connector which supports up to ATA-100 devices.
Next we see another curiosity, four SATA ports. Remember that there is only enough space for two Serial drives max in the EX915. I can only assume that AOpen uses the UX915G motherboard in other products it manufactures. Too many is always better than too few I always say. Next to this is the passive cooler mounted on the ICH6 Southbridge. AOpen gets an ‘A’ for team spirit. Notice I said the ICH6 and not the ICH6-R; sorry no RAID boys and girls.
No AGP on the i915 boards. PCI and PCI-Express only, to address any expansion needs you may have.
Pg 1 - Introduction |
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