ECS KN1 Extreme

[Steve]

Today we take a look at a nVIDIA nForce 4 Ultra based motherboard. The feature set is huge, the colour scheme is... interesting, performance is good, but overclocking could be better. Don't take my word for it though, read the review.

If you want to taste the goodness of NVIDIA's latest chipset in its Ultra incarnation and aren't worried about the overclocking side of things, what you have here is a solid, stable, fully featured setup, and all at an extremely tempting price point to boot. The overclockers among us will want to wait however, either for future BIOS updates for this board or to look elsewhere.

The good news is, manufacturers like to know what HEXUS thinks of their products, and ECS are addressing the BIOS issues which we pointed out, as can be seen in the "HEXUS.right2reply" section at the end of the review.

[seanchayes]

In the review you mention that it has an impressive price, however, I can't find it listed.

What is the price as the dealtime link doesn't list Nforce4 boards nor boards made by ECS?!

Thanks!

[Hanners]

The price we've been given for the board is £79.99 + VAT (Which makes £94 inc VAT) - Impressive for an nForce4 Ultra board if you ask me.

[m1ke_hawkins]

Yes, that is very cheap for an nForce 4 Ultra board, as the cheapest i've seen so far is about £130!

Mike

[seanchayes]

Cool! Makes owning a 939 based Athlon 64 system really good value.

[Rave]

The big problem with ECS boards in this country is hardly anywhere stocks them, none of the big retailers do in my experience. As a result, if you can find them at all, they end up being hardly any cheaper than boards from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte etc., even though the price at the factory gates is probably considerably lower.

Rich :¬)

[fingers]

The big problem with ECS boards in this country is hardly anywhere stocks them...

This is very true however this will hopefully change over the coming year as ECS is changing how they approach the market as anyone who reads trade publications (PC Reseller Magazines) and has seen the ECS adverts would have noticed.

The KN1 Extreme is now available/shown on directfrom.com with a listed price of £93.99 inc VAT and should be in stock very soon indeed

[Rave]

Well IMO that's too much. CPU city have the DFI Ultra board on pre-order for about a tenner more than that, and it has the two huge advantages that a) it's not the ugliest board ever produced and b) it overclocks like a champ. If it was £75-80 it'd be a far more tempting proposition.

[fingers]

Well IMO that's too much. CPU city have the DFI Ultra board on pre-order for about a tenner more than that, and it has the two huge advantages that a) it's not the ugliest board ever produced and b) it overclocks like a champ. If it was £75-80 it'd be a far more tempting proposition.

Have to agree on the styling, in which case if your not bothered about all the fancy cables etc. then how about the ECS nForce4-A939 which is essentially the same board but without the lego style paint job and which will retail much (much) cheeper! Unsure of a retail outlet yet but should have details very soon!

[noveltylamp]

I notice that in the ECS motherboard review, it is compared to the EQS motherboard using the ATI Xpress 200 chipset.

Will there be a review of this board on Hexus?

Could you tell me if the EQS board has any kind of overclocking functions?

Thankyou,
Paul