Overclocker Cafe - AOpen i945Ga-PHS DC Motherboard

AOpen i945Ga-PHS Dual Core Motherboard

The Bundle

Let's take a look at what we've got inside our box. Of course there's the requisite manual and driver CD. But we've also got one of those big nifty fold out sheets for the quick set up. For the beginner or just someone in a hurry, these things are great.

We've also got a bundle of cables to include (1) SATA cable, (1) SATA power cable, the FDD and IDE cables and the S-Video hookup cables. Not as large a bundle as we would like, but that S-Video cable is nice to have, especially for the HTPC folks.

Board Layout

Like the i945Pa-PLF that we took a look at earlier, AOpen has once again used that very cool black PCB for this board. Indeed, the general layout is pretty much the same with a few exceptions.

It's a roomy design, though there are a few drawbacks that we'll cover as when go through.

The socket is surrounded by capacitors, but they're the nice low profile design to allow for oversized heatsinks.

AOpen has kept with their normal Northbridge heatsink design, the large oversized fins should be able to handle all but the hardcore overclocker. And with the Southbridge, they're using that very cool looking "AOpen" heatsink design.

Grouped around the Southbridge are the SATA ports. All six of these are listed as SATA II, so the reason for the color difference is anyone's guess.

However, the position of these will present a problem if you're using one of those big honkin' video cards as we found out when we plugged in our HIS X800XL with the IceQ cooler. A large card will block easy access to two of the connectors.

The IDE connection sits beside the DIMM slots right below the ATX power connector.

However, the FDD connection is at the bottom of the board, below the PCI slots. While this doesn't cause a problem for me, you should be aware that you'll need to make sure your FDD is positioned low enough in the case for the cable to reach.

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