| Packaging
and First Impressions |
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The ITE IT8712F-A provides the legacy Super I/O functionality plus the latest
Environment Control initiatives, such as H/W Monitor, Fan Speed Controller,
ITE's "SmartGuardian" function and Smart Card Reader Interface.
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The CMedia I8738 PCI-6ch-MX is defiantly no stranger. It handles the 6 discrete
audio channels to provide the surround sound 5.1. It’s quite a shame
to see it used on this board though, as the MCP-T includes a perfectly good
Dolby certified APU. This and the missing 3Com MAC are very strange indeed.
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And last but certainly not least, the Promise PDC20376. This little guy
supports the 2 Serial ATA channels and also the single channel RAID 1/0.
You can see the two serial headers in the center of the right picture; one
above and one below the Promise chip. Now if you plan on using the serial
functionality you’re going to need some serial IDE cables and even
some serial power connectors. Luckily for you, Chaintech has decided to
throw two of each of them in with the bundle.
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While we’re on the subject of the IDE interface, let me point out
that third IDE channel over there on the right. This one is used for connecting
the IDE drive for RAID functionality. Now there’s two ways you can
use RAID on this board. You can either stripe or mirror your two serial
drives or you can add an extra parallel IDE drive on the third channel to
increase your storage capacity. For those of you who have no need for RAID,
you can simply use this third channel to support a fifth IDE drive. Still
with me?
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Now there is just one other area of the board layout that I wanted to bring
to your attention, the CPU’s cozy little corner. It seems Chaintech
has learned a lot from the many poorly designed boards that have come before
them. They’ve taken great care to make sure the capacitors around
the CPU are kept at a reasonable distance. As you can see, there is ample
room for my giant Thermalright SLK-800 to call home. This isn’t without
its downfalls though. The room given to the heatsinks has been taken away
from the power supply connection. This can make things a little awkward
to get to at times but shouldn’t cause nearly as much trouble as a
cramped heatsink.
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| CONTENTS |
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