Lets take a close look at the A7N266-C and its bundled components.
Looking at the motherboard it isn't that different from other boards. Asus has changed the placement of several things. One of the most visually striking things about the A7N266-C is the huge heatsink attached to the Northbridge. Asus has adopted the use of these to keep their Northbridge chipsets running cool. The use of the word HUGE just doesn't do it justice.
With the system running under full load the heatsink gets warm to the touch. This heatsink and a case with good airflow should help keep the NVIDIA IGP-128 Northbridge running cool. I just couldn't resist pulling the hunk of aluminum off the board to have a look underneath. The heatsink is easily removed with a pair of needle nose pliers. From the underside of the board gently pinch the mounting pins and POP they unlock. To reinstall simply put the heatsink in place and push on top of the mounting pins. Boy was I surprised, it appears that only the edges of the Northbridge comes in contact with the heatsink.
Looking at the pictures we can see where the bottom of the heatsink contacts the Northbridge chip. During all phases of testing I never had any heat related issues. Again the heatsink was only warm to the touch.
Another thing we noticed is the placement of the power connector. Asus has moved it to the right side edge of the motherboard near center. I liked this as it helped to keep the main power harness out of the way of the heatsink and fan assembly. Having the harness to the side also keeps it from interfering with internal case airflow.
The placement of the IDE and Floppy connectors near the center right edge leaves you with quite a bit of extra cable to work with depending on the type of case you have. All the connectors are easy to get to while installed in the case.
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The 462 Socket has been repositioned. Looking at it, it seems to be in about the same place as most, but it is NOT. The socket is actually closer to the upper edge of the motherboard, which is okay. The problem is that they have spun the socket and now the heatsinks clasp is near the edge of the board, which pins it under the PSU leaving only an inch or two to work with while mounting. This will not pose a problem for most end users but if you are a tweaker/overclocker and are like me always working on your system, it is impossible to remove the heatsink with the board installed. During the review process, I had to remove the PSU from my case to remove/install the heatsink with the board mounted. Again this will not bother most users but it bugged me to no end.
Take a look at the expansion slots. Notice anything?? The board must have been made on a Friday as the last PCI slot is mounted backwards.
Below the five standard PCI Slots is an Advanced Communication Riser (ACR) slot for Communications and Audio Systems. This slot supports the ACR-A6CH card that is bundled with the A7N266-C platform. This super-connector card includes two AC'97 audio CODEC chips that supply 6-channel audio output.
The ACR-A6CH produces an S/PIDF_OUT digital audio signal with the help of the NVIDIA MCP-D Southbridge w/built-in Dolby Digital Encoder. As you may expect from seeing the slot layout, you loose the use of the number 5 PCI slot when the ACR-A6CH card is used. No big deal since the quality of the audio is excellent. To unlock the full potential of the ACR-A6CH card and the Dolby Digital 5.1 features the proper software must be used. Okay, so what's the catch? Nothing really, this works with any game or software such as PowerDVD or WinDVD that supports these features.
As mentioned earlier the A7N266-C does not come with the integrated GeForce2 Video. This is the first nForce motherboard to be produced without integrated video. If you take a look at the motherboard back plate you will see a couple of things missing.
The second serial port connector is missing. This is where the video connector would be placed if we had the integrated GeForce2 Video. If you need both of the serial connectors don't panic as Asus has included a second serial connector, which mounts in the case.
Also since the A7N266-C is bundled with the ACR-A6CH card there are no sound connectors beneath the gaming port. Again not to worry as Asus has included a case back plate to use with this platform. This will help keep your case looking it's best without leaving those extra holes.
Are you getting that feeling that Asus has thought of just about everything when they put this bundle together? Well they have. Included in this bundle is a 2-port USB connector board. With the addition of this board you have a total of 4 USB ports available.
