Differences with the Epox 8KHA+

Since this board is the successor of the 8KHA+ we were hoping for some improvements. The biggest issue with the 8KHA+ was discovered when the GF4 Ti 4600 was released in February. A capacitor close to the AGP port was out of specs and would therefore cause problems when used in combination with a Geforce 4. Epox tech support just advised us to rip off the faulty capacitor, "it is not necessary, and only provides stability for the DDR subsystem", I for one am not removing anything from my 8KHA+.

the out of spec capacitor on the 8KHA+

the smaller capacitor on the 8K3A

We were quite pleased to see this change because we were planning to team the motherboard with a GF4 Ti. After we installed it we could clearly see the difference, where on the 8KHA+ the 2 capacitors were touching we saw no such problem arise on the 8K3A

out-of-focus picture of the GF4 installed on the 8K3A

Another thing we noticed was the placement of some protection tape around the Socket, to prevent scratches on the mainboard during installation of the heatsink, you may think it's useless, but wait until you physically break the connection between your CPU & RAM with your screwdriver :)

8KHA+ on the left - 8K3A on the right