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Wednesday, September 3, 2008

EPoX Optimus EP-AD580 XR Motherboard Review :: Introduction


EPoX is a second-tier motherboard manufacturer based in Taiwan founded in 1995, over 10 years ago. They have quiet as of late in the US market, as the ever-changing motherboard market has mostly ignored their motherboards except for a few vendors. Recently, EPoX has re-emerged in the US market with a line of motherboards called Optimus, named I guess after the Transformer Optimus Prime. Long-time comics and cartoon fans know the Transformers are the Autobots versus the Decepticons and the board is styled after that series in a conceptual sort of way.
Multiple GPU solutions have taken the form of two main competitors, SLI and Crossfire from NVIDIA and ATI, respectively. While many more motherboards support Crossfire than SLI, due to ATI's relaxed stand towards other manufacturers having Crossfire support (i.e. Intel), NVIDIA's SLI solution has the lion's share of the market of multiple-GPU solutions actually in use (Steam survey 3/1/2007 NVIDIA 96%, ATI 4%.) Today, the motherboard on the review slate is the EPoX Optimus AD580 XR motherboard.

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