In the ATX form factor, board architecture is paramount for my purposes, and the Intel D975XBX is a winner for several good reasons. Most notable is the position of the 24-pin motherboard power socket at the extreme upper right corner. Why, for instance, would you want a 24-conductor, bulky harness extending across the board—interfering with HD power and data cables? It's ridiculous, right? Secondly, parallel HDs are really a thing of the past, or at least they should be. This board is devoid of superfluous IDE sockets that would otherwise be aesthetically obtrusive and occupy real estate that could be (and is, in this case) reserved for print, chokes, and capacitors. Personally, I prefer host adapters over onboard RAID, but this board has all the onboard functionality any RAID devotee would need, except, perhaps, Raid5. 8 GB RAM capacity is wonderful and was, a short time ago, reserved for BTX, expanded ATX, or server boards. This looks like a very clean, practical foundation for any serious builder.
Stephanie Trapasso
Linear Mode
