Product Listing

EPoX EP-9U1697 GLI (ULi M1697)

By Zachary Chan - 25 Apr 2006

Conclusion

Conclusion

So what do we think of the EpoX EP-9U1697 GLI? The motherboard caters to the very audience that has nurtured EpoX thus far, which is the overclocking community. It features an extensive BIOS for memory tweaking and EpoX's Power BIOS functions empowers overclockers to stay in control of their system. The dynamic frequency information is a nice touch, but most importantly, the motherboard exhibits a high overclocking capability. Our 290MHz HT overclock already puts it in league with the best in the market. Based on our experience, we believe that the board should be able to take you past 300MHz without a problem if you have the right cooling.

Performance-wise, the EP-9U1697 GLI has proven itself to be a strong contender in the value segment and EPoX must be congratulated for a successful implementation of the ULi M1697 chipset. However, not everything was smooth sailing as we did encounter some BIOS POST issues with the 'retail' BIOS revision available on EPoX's website. After EPoX provided us with a separate BIOS to use, it solved most of our issues, though some timing problems were still apparent. When running certain benchmarks like PCMark04 or PCMark05, the board would sometimes crash back to the desktop so benchmarking wasn't as smooth as we had hoped. It remains to be seen if EPoX can iron out the minor kinks with the board, but users shouldn't worry too much as these crashes are far apart and could be due to 1001 things related to software/hardware compatibility within Windows itself.

In terms of features, one can possibly look at the EP-9U1697 GLI from two different angles. In a more pessimistic view, the board is really quite bare. Neither gamers nor enthusiasts, which the board is targeted at will be satisfied with a Fast Ethernet connection and the 6-channel AC'97 CODEC doesn't do the chipset any justice. There is also no FireWire support onboard, but remember that EPoX will carry a different SKU of the board (with a GLI-J suffix) that will address some of these concerns.

The EPoX EP-9U1697 GLI is a great overclocker that is highly recommended for any AMD enthusiast.

However, the EP-9U1697 GLI does seem to feature an incredibly robust SATA controller and one cannot overlook its support for dual PCIe graphics. While neither NVIDIA, ULi or EPoX will be rushing to satisfy your cravings for SLI, it can be done if you are savvy enough. For an average retail price of US$80, the EPoX EP-9U1697 GLI is very attractively priced, but it does have some tough competition to beat, especially from ASRock. The EP-9U1697 GLI may not be the most fully featured, but if you're an avid overclocker, its true potential is just waiting to be unlocked, a classic EPoX motherboard if you will.

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