[section_title title=”Packaging”]
Packaging
Packaging on motherboards can range from the very basic box with just a little bit of writing on it to some extravagant designs that you cannot help but look at. The ECS marketing team have gone with a more simplistic approach but the back of the box, as you’ll see in a minute, is packed with information rather than pretty looks. In the mean time, and while we’re focussing on the front of the box, it shows us the name of the motherboard, and the series of which it is a part of. It’s a simple black design, with the L337 logo blown up and given a carbon fibre finish which completes the visuals on this one. Both the GANK name and the outer logo on the front of the box have a silver lining which reflects light depending and obviously its colour depending on what colour hits it. Presumably it is to catch your attention as you walk past it. Only a few of its features such as the CrossFire and SLi support as well as the Intel logos and the Creative SoundBlaster technology on-board the motherboard are shown on the front. The writing speaks for itself, and it tells us that it is indeed the GANK DRONE Z87H3-A3X motherboard. As this is a part of the L337 series from ECS, that logo is also included in the top left corner.
The other side of the box is somewhat different. It is absolutely loaded with brief bits of information on its features. At the top, it has the key specs as they put it which are mostly native to the Z87 chipset, apart from the LAN controller and of course the audio chipset too. On the left side, we have its specifications, albeit a little more cut down to what we saw previously on the specifications page. Moving our way towards the right of the box, it contains a number of features such as the dual PCIe Gen 3.0 slots, again native to the Z87 chipset and Haswell CPUs, the RAM capabilities, its solid golden caps which offer six times the lifespan of standard capacitors and the three way video output which consists of DVI, HDMI and VGA. To top it all off, it has a little blurb about the heatsinks, the Intel I217-V Gigabit Ethernet controller, and the SoundBlaster audio chip.
Inside the box, it is separated into two compartments with thanks to a white cardboard container. In the top portion lays the motherboard and underneath lays its accessories which are arguably lacking but this is a motherboard on a budget, and it still has all of the essentials to get you started. The L337 logo is printed on the white box and it has the ‘BATTLE READY’ slogan in the bottom right hand corner too.
Within the box you’ll find the following bits and bobs:
1x ECS Z87H3-A3X
1x Quick Installation Guide
1x Driver DVD
1x I/O shield
2x SATA 6Gbps Cables
Unfortunately, the I/O shield is missing from our sample but you can rest assured that it will be with your motherboard.
