ECS PF5 Extreme

[W1zzard]

From a feature perspective ECS offers a very well rounded board with the PF5 Extreme. Having one Gigabit and one Fast Ethernet port is exactly the combination which I think is a good compromise between speed and price. Getting six SATA ports and two PCI-E x16 ports for around $120 is also very nice. However, if you are looking into overclocking more than just a little bit this board might not for you. It has quite a few issues when it comes to overclocking.

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[Bull Dog]

About that missing mobo hole. My old MSI K8T Neo2 only had 9 holes (instead of 10 like the DFI). So yes ECS isn't alone.

Edit: Yes there is a powercolor PCI-Express X1 Theater 550 card. Although newegg doesn't seem to have it listed anymore. huh?

 

[xeroid11]

About the dead bios. I ran into the same problem with my ECS mobo using the DOS flash utility: cmos checksum failure, hit F1, reset NVM, reboot, cmos checksum failure, etc. I accidentally hit the "ESCape" key twice during one of twenty or so attempts at fixing the bios which "exits without saving" and watched windows boot. I then flashed with the Winflash utility and it took. I am happy as the ECS tech support just replied to my email two days after the crash.

 

[g12rxz]

Very interesting review, I'll be recieiving the ATI Crossfire xPress 3200 version of this board for AM2. I'll keep my eye out for an updated bios to use on the board, and to be safe I'll just use the windows utility like you guys have pointed out.