A few weeks ago we went a few rounds with ECS’s KN1 Extreme. The board earned some great marks and it’s an impressive product coming from ECS. It’s certainly not a board that you would traditional associate with the company and they are continuing their make over with their update to the KN1 Extreme with the KN1 SLI Extreme.

The ECS KN1 SLI Extreme doesn’t just add SLI to their previous board but also extends it a little. First off, the name will tip you off in that it’s an SLI board sporting the nForce4 SLI chipset. CPU’s that this board supports include the AMD 939 pin line so anything from the Sempron to the dual core AMD64 processors are usable by the board.



Four memory slots allow for a maximum of 4 gigabytes of memory to be on board. Memory speeds support up to DDR400 and they are color coded so that you’ll know which pairs to insert for dual-channel memory access. The KN1 Extreme worked flawlessly with all four slots filled and I expect this board to do the same. We’ll see in the tests if there are any problems filling up the RAM slots.

Two PCI Express x16, one PCI Express x1, and three PCI slots round out the expansion area. The x1 PCI-E slot sits between the two PCI-E x16 slots and if you plan on using two NVIDIA cards. Unlike the ABIT AN8 SLI, you can use the x1 slot here. There’s an increased spacing between the two PCI-E x16 slots and the retention clip can be moved between the two open slots that should be available. Kudos to ECS for being smart enough in their design on this part. One of the three PCI slots, colored yellow, offers better stability and is recommended for audio cards. Hopefully, we’ll see more PCI-E x1 cards soon to take advantage of the two that are on this board. Each PCI slot has an LED associated that gives you a status of the slot. When blinking, no data or a problem with the seating of the card lets you know there’s something wrong with it. While I do really like the visual cue, I would’ve rather seen the blinking not be there when there’s no card installed. Those with window cases may find it annoying and hopefully there’s a BIOS update that can let you choose how the LED notifies you.

Dual network connections are offered through a Realtek RTL8100C controller that supports 10/100 Mbps and a Marvell 88E1111 controller that supports up to gigabit speed. Some may not like the lack of gigabit support on the secondary controller. Given that the board has at least one with that speed, I am more inclined to overlook the lack of it on the other. Because the board uses the nForce4 SLI chipset, there’s the option of using nVidia’s ActiveArmor hardware firewall. You can never have too much security these days and nVidia’s firewall implementation is ok. The hardware firewall should also take fewer resources than a software one. After installing the software, you get Zone Alarm type notifications on applications accessing the network. I was pleased with how it worked and having a built in firewall on the motherboard is a great feature.

ECS’s KN1 Extreme had the older ALC655 chip but the SLI version comes at you with the ALC850 for 8.1 channels. I applaud the move here as ECS could’ve easily stuck the same audio solution on the motherboard. Instead they move to the 8.1 product and the improvement is really welcomed. The board still features the dual S/PDIF but since it’s an 8.1 solution now, the rear panel audio connectors feature three more 1/8” plugs to accommodate the extra sound channels.

The nForce4 chip does get pretty hot and ECS has decided to implement a very high aluminum cooler to help keep temperatures down. While I do like that they have an active cooling solution on the chipset, I am not a fan of the sound it makes. With no way to dial down the speed or have it be regulated, the noise generated along with the other coolers ...