Asus is one of those hardware
companies that has earned a reputation for reliability. As
with most motherboard vendors, they started producing
motherboards, but then branched out to video cards, as
well as modems and Ethernet cards. In my time building and
testing systems, I often found that Asus provided some of
the best performance boards usually combined with some of
the latest and greatest features. A few of them even found
their way into my own personal system like the P3V4X,
which was up until recently my favorite (Pentium 3) board
of all time. Thus, I was pleased when their latest
offering, the A7V333, showed up in the Hot Hardware labs
in need of some testing.
The A7V333 is based on the current VIA chipset offering,
namely the KT333, supporting AMD Socket A processors,
AGP4X, and PC2700 or DDR333 memory. As we have seen, the
KT333 provides good performance, but yet not really that
much better than the previous chipset, that of the KT266A.
To convince users to upgrade their systems, or to simply
get the new reseller to look their way, companies have to
market their boards in a way that catches the customer?s
eye with features and flashy advertising, both of which we
found here. The box has a whole lot going on with
fireballs, ice crystals, you name it. And yes, it even
lists the board and some special features, these being the
KT333 chipset, RAID ATA133, Asus Post Reporter, Asus C.O.P,
and Asus MyLogo. It also says ?Designed for eXtreme
Performance? which for one, hopefully is the last XP
reference I hear for a while, and two sets up some great
expectations and not that of the Dicken?s kind (look it up
on Google if you don?t get it).
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Specifications / Features of
the
Asus A7V333 |
A Full Featured
KT333... |
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CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN
ENLARGED VIEW
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Chipset
Type
-
VIA KT333 Northbridge
-
VIA VT8233A Southbridge
CPU
Socket
CPUs
Supported
Form
Factor
Memory
Description
BIOS
Description
-
2Mb Flash ROM
-
Award BIOS
-
Supports DMI 2.0
Expansion Slots
IDE
Description
IDE
RAID
-
Promise 20276 ATA133
RAID controller supporting RAID 0,1
Onboard
Audio Features
Onboard Media Reader
Supports Security Application Smart Card interface
Also supports Memory Stick and Secure Digital Memory
Cards
Back
I/O Ports
Internal I/O Connectors
-
1 connector for 2
additional USB 2.0/1.1 ports
-
1 connector for
additional serial port
-
1 connector for
game/MIDI port
-
4 internal audio
connectors (CD-in, Aux-in, Video-in, and TAD)
-
1 4-channel audio
output connector
-
1 S/PDIF-in connector
-
1 S/PDIF-out connector
-
1 connector for IrDA
interface
-
1 Smart Card interface
-
1 Memory Stick
interface
-
1 Secure Digital Memory
Card interface
Health
Monitoring Description
-
Monitors CPU/system
temperature and overheat alarm
-
Monitors voltages and
failure alarm
-
Monitors
CPU/chassis/second fan speed and failure alarm
-
Automatic
chassis/second fan on/off control
-
Opened chassis alarm
Dimension Description | | The
BIOS, Layout and Quality
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