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Date |
: Oct 22nd, 2001 |
| Category |
: Motherboards |
| Manufacturer |
: ASUS |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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ASUS chose to go with a more traditional brown PCB. However, it is huge, sharing the AOpen AX3S Plus' dimensions of 12" x 9.5" (HxW) and potentially causing end-users with smaller cases some grief to install. In part, this is due to the high number of memory slots present; 2 184-pin DDR DIMM slots and 3 168-pin SDRAM DIMM slots. That said, the layout of the TUA266 is commendable, with component placement being carefully thought out. The ATX power supply header sits parallel and next to the SDRAM DIMM slots, which is a fine arrangement albeit with one minor drawback : the ATX power cable will hang over the DIMM slots, making DIMM installation and removal somewhat inconvenient.
Strangely, the DDR slots are positioned about a quarter inch below the SDRAM slots. The DDR slots could stand to be a bit higher as one has to remove the AGP card before installing or removing any DDR DIMMs. Additionally, the DDR slots are closer than usual to the CPU socket. This could negatively affect stability as the exhaust airflow from the heatsink/fan unit is obstructed, dumping additional waste heat to the installed DDR DIMMs. As done on all motherboards, the front panel connectors are placed in the lower-left corner of the motherboard, ensuring that the cables do not get in the way of any expansion slots.
RAID functionality is absent from the TUA266, nor does it look as if there will be a RAID version. The IDE headers are located toward the bottom of the motherboard, roughly an inch from the SDRAM slots. This minimizes potential cable clutter because the headers are closer to the storage devices. Due to the placement of the ATX power connector, ASUS relocated the floppy header rightwards, next to the BIOS. Fortunately, they oriented it parallel to the PCI slots, so that all slots on the TUA266 may be populated with full-length cards.
ASUS decided to integrate only 2 USB ports, including 2 USB headers on the board as well as a bracket with an additional 2 USB ports. The additional USB headers are placed toward the lower-left of the motherboard, an ideal location as some casings such as the CoolerMaster ATCs include front USB ports. You would have surmised by now that the ALi M1535D+ South Bridge supports a grand total of 6 USB ports!
Capacitor placement is near perfect, with only 2 1500uF capacitors encroaching on the CPU socket. Unless you need to utilize a very large heatsink, the TUA266 should present no problems, as we readily verified by installing the GlobalWIN FOP-38 and the Thermosonic ThermoEngine.
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