Introduction & Specs

Hot on the heels of ECS’ Editor Day, they hit us back with the SLI model of the KN1 Extreme motherboard. They tell us that overclocking has improved, but is it really? More importantly does ECS manage to score with features and price again?

Not long ago we reviewed the ECS KN1 Extreme motherboard here on PC Perspective. While I really approved of the board’s package and price, the tweaks and overclocking features were a bit lacking. In fact, with a HT multiplier of 3x, I was only able to get a 230MHz bus speed. I’ve been in contact with ECS since then and they have informed me that the KN1 SLI is much better at overclocking, of course we’re going to find out. But the biggest concern for me is whether or not ECS manages to pull off a value champion as they did with the KN1. Is the price / performance / packge still there?

ECS KN1 SLI Extreme Motherboard Review - Motherboards 25

Specifications

ECS KN1 Extreme

Chipset

NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI

Socket Type

AMD Socket 939

Memory

4x DDR400 DIMMs, 4GB max., Dual-channel

Drive Connectivity

2x ATA133 IDE
4x SATA II (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD)

Auxiliary Drive Connectivity

2x SATA II (RAID 0, 1, JBOD)

Audio

Realtek ALC850 5.1 channel audio

Analog Audio Connectivity

6x jacks (front, rear, surround, center/bass, mic)

Digital Audio Connectivity

Coax and Optical SPDIF output

Network

Marvell 88E1111 10/100/1000 MB
Realtek RTL8100C 10/100 MB

USB 2.0

4 ports on rear panel
3 headers onboard
(includes 2-port bracket)

Firewire IEEE1394

2 headers onboard
(includes 2-port bracket)

Comparing the specifications above with the KN1 we reviewed a few weeks back, the only differences are the audio and auxiliary drive connectivity. While the KN1 only had 3 audio jacks and a Realteck ALC650, it did have an extra ATA133 channel. But the KN1 SLI has two extra SATA-II (v2.3) instead of two plain SATA (v1.0).
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