ECS C19-A SLI

Board Layout:

Continuing in our usual look at the motherboard with a few comments, we had begun in the upper right hand portion of the PCB with the memory slots. Supported by the ECS C19-A SLI, and really the NVIDIA C19XE Chipset, is support for dual channel DDR2-533/667. The maximum memory supported by the motherboard is 16GB. Above the four multi-colored memory sockets is an ITE IT8712F-A Super I/O controller. As usual, running along the right edge of the motherboard's PCB is a 20/24-pin ATX power, one ATA-133 IDE, and one FDD connector. Take note as the main ATX power connector lies relatively close to the memory DIMMs. The second IDE interface for the ECS motherboard is running along the bottom edge of the motherboard.

In the lower right hand corner of the motherboard are the four Serial ATA 2.0 connectors. Unlike some compact motherboards, these SATA ports are spaced relatively far apart from each other. The NVIDIA Chipset supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 configurations. The NVIDIA MCP51 Southbridge is covered by a small aluminum passive heatsink with pushpins in two opposing corners. In this general vicinity of the motherboard are the BIOS battery and chip, CMOS reset, and two USB 2.0 headers.

Moving to the expansion slots are two PCI Express x16, two PCI Express x1, and three PCI slots. With the NVIDIA C19XE having a limited number of lanes, in order to accommodate Scalable Link Interface (or simply two graphics cards) when the two PCI-E x16 slots are occupied the bandwidth will drop from x16 to x8. Unlike earlier motherboards that required a SLI paddle to re-route these PCI Express channels, the ECS C19-A SLI is automatically negotiable. Allowing for adequate airflow or allowing for larger VGA heatsinks, placed between the two PCI Express x16 slots is one of the PCI Express x1 interfaces. If multiple graphics cards will be used, and the power supply with the system only offers a 20-pin interface, above the top PCI Express x1 connection is a 4-pin molex connector for providing additional power to the motherboard. Filling the void between the expansion slots and end of the PCB are Marvell 88E1115-RCJ1 Gigabit LAN ASIC and Realtek ALC883 codec.