Gaming rig showing more signs of wear than that 20 year old beater in the driveway that you call a car? Grandparents and other family members snickering behind your back because they've got calculators more powerful than your PC? You know that it's way past the scheduled time to upgrade and you've got cash in hand in order to get yourself back into gaming bliss. From all that you've read you know that a new Athlon 64 platform is just what the doctor ordered to cure your gaming blues, but with so many motherboard choices, which one is right for you? Sure, you know the common names and favorites such as ABIT, ASUS, DFI, GIGABYTE and MSI; but have you ever considered ECS?

Now before you go raise an eyebrow and mutter “Whatchoo talkin' ‘bout Willis?”, give me a minute to explain. ECS, Elitegroup Computer Systems, has actually been around since 1987 so they're definitely not some new, fledgling outfit. While ECS might not command as large of a household name compared to the likes of other U.S. favored manufacturers, they are quite popular in Asia where they are one of Taiwan 's five largest motherboard manufacturers. Those of you who've ever used an ECS motherboard know that they're usually regarded as a value or entry-level product. Their motherboards are typically devoid of all the bells and whistles you'd find in other brands like ASUS or ABIT who go out of their way to offer enthusiast grade boards with every frill and option you can imagine. ECS is looking to change those conceptions and try to capture some of the enthusiast market with the release of their “Extreme” branded line of boards.

Today we'll be taking a look at the one of the three current boards in the Extreme series, the KN1 Extreme . Based upon the nForce4 Ultra chipset, this board supports Socket 939 processors from the AMD Athlon 64 family. Just a look at the features and extras, even the boards' purple PCB seems to show a promising start, especially when this motherboard can be found selling for a mere $104 online. One begins to wonder if this isn't too good to be true, after all, this is a board that's supposed to be competing against other enthusiast grade boards from ASUS and ABIT which sell for $150 and up. So is there some special mojo ECS has been sprinkling on these boards or is there some sinister reason behind their low price tag? That's what I plan to investigate in today's review. It's been quite some time since we've reviewed a motherboard here at GruntvillE, ironically it was me with another Athlon 64 board, and I think it's high time to kick it back into gear.