Most of the onboard connectors are placed towards the low right part of the motherboard. The lowest part is populated by connectors which provide extra USB and Firewire ports. By using those connectors the motherboard can provide an extra 6 USB and 2 Firewire ports. At the lowest right part of the motherboard, Epox have two switches, one for power and one for reset. I believe that it was DFI who first integrated onboard switches on home consumer motherboards. The switches are exceptionally handy if you are testing the system out of a case or if you are not using a case at all. Testers and benchmarkers will love this option. The motherboard also has a 2 digit LCD installed which can be used for troubleshooting in the unfortunate event it is needed.

The I/O panel of the 9NPA+ Ultra is interesting. Beside the usual PS/2 and the legacy serial and parallel ports, there are 4 USB ports and a LAN port. There are 6 analog sound jacks and 2 digital sound connectors, one of which is optical and one is coaxial. In order to install the digital sound connectors, Epox had to remove the 2nd serial port, but I do not think that anyone will be missing that.