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#750 - ECS KA3 MVP Motherboard |
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Written by Zach Jeffers
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Saturday, 04 November 2006 |
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Page 6 of 10
I/O Cluster and Installation:
At the back of the ECS KA3 MVP, we can see the I/O cluster. From left to right, you have the keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports, a 40mm fan with neon green shroud, optical out, SPDIF out, a 10/100mb and 10/100/1000mb LAN jacks, four USB 2.0 ports, and lastly the six 1/8” jacks for your eight channel audio. A closer look at the fan from the back you can see that the plastic shroud compresses the air out of the case through the available slot left by the lack of a parallel port at the I/O cluster. Like mentioned with the accessories, there is a parallel expansion included that connects to a header on the motherboard.
 
The fan shroud is about an addition 10mm taller and 20mm wider than the included 40mm fan. This is a great idea especially with the power MOSFETs located here and, with most coolers, hot air from the CPU cooler being able to be exhausted here. This is a trend that is catching on and is found on most new enthusiast boards in some shape or form.
  
Installation of our recently tested Cooler Master Hyper TX HSF proved effortless. The combination of the shrouds of the Hyper TX and the KA3 MVP seem like a perfect match! Clearance was great and nothing interfered.
   
For testing, we installed the motherboard into our Ultra Aluminus case.
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Motherboards 
