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If you are a hardware
enthusiast and have been following the battle between
AMD and
Intel,
you are no doubt familiar with the Athlon and DDR (Double
Data Rate) memory. When the Pentium 4 was first
introduced, even the most die-hard AMD fanatics marveled
at the impressive memory bandwidth scores Intel's flagship
processor, coupled with RDRAM, was capable of. Not
to be outdone, AMD set out to find an alternative to
standard SDRAM that could provide increased memory
bandwidth to their platform. AMD, among a few other
major players, decided to embrace DDR memory.
To take
advantage of the increased bandwidth associated with DDR
memory though, a new motherboard chipset had to be
designed. Hence the introduction of the AMD 760
chipset. The product we will be taking a look at
today, the
Epox 8K7A+, is a hybrid motherboard equipped with an
AMD 761 Northbridge and a VIA 686B Southbridge.
Having no prior experience with an Epox product, I was
eager to test the 8K7A+. Soon after it arrived in
our lab, we installed it and ran it through the wringer.
Did the engineers at Epox produce a quality product that
does the AMD / VIA / DDR combination justice? Read on and
find out...
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| Specifications / Features of
the Epox 8K7A+ |
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Not missing
much... |
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Click any Image for an
Enlarged view...
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Supports Socket A Processors
- AMD Athlon & Duron
- AMD-761 + VIA 686B
AGPset
I/O
Controller
- 1 Floppy drive
controller
- 120MB ATAPI floppy
drive and ZIP support
- 1 Parallel port (EPP,
ECP)
- 2 Serial ports
- USB (2 supported
onboard. 2 additional as option)
- PS/2 connectors
- 1 PS/2 mouse
- 1 PS/2 keyboard
- 6 (32-bit) PCI
- 1 AGP
- AGP supports 1x, 2x
and 4x modes
Award
PnP BIOS
UltraDMA-100 EIDE Controllers
- Up to 4 IDE devices
- Backwards compatible
with PIO mode 3/4 & UltraDMA-33/66
- Extra IDE Port by
HPT370/Ultra DMA 66/100 & IDE RAID x 2 (Up to 4
Devices)
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200/266MHz Front Side Bus
- 2x DDR-SDRAM Slots
for PC1600/PC2100
- 1GB max. supported
- Memory not included
Standard ATX form factor
Built-in AC97 Digital Audio (by VT82C686B)
- Dual full-duplex
Direct Sound channels
- H/W Sound Blaster
Pro for DOS legacy compatibility
- FM synthesis for
legacy compatibility
- Supports game and
MIDI port
Extended Functions
- Keyboard Power On (KBPO)
- Supports exclusive
USDM (Unified System Diagnostic Manager) under
Win9x/NT4 - monitor in Windows system temperatures,
voltages, etc.
- Hardware monitoring
functions provided by VIA VT82C686B chipset
- Supports CPU Vcore &
Vio setting by jumpers
- Supports CPU
multiplier by switches
- Supports CPU clock
by BIOS options
- Hardware
sleep/resume
- P80P Debug (POST)
Card onboard design with LED display
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THE BUNDLE:
The Epox
8K7A+ comes with a "standard" bundle, including an
80-Wire UDMA/100 IDE cable, a 40-Wire IDE cable, a
floppy cable and a secondary USB connector.
Also
included in the box are two excellent user's manuals,
one for the board itself, the other explaining how to
use the on-board RAID controller. The bundled
CD-ROM contains all of the drivers necessary to get
the board up and running along with a copy of Norton
Ghost, which is an excellent drive imaging program.
INSTALLATION:
The Epox
8K7A+ installed as easily as any other standard ATX
motherboard. A few standoffs and screws and we
were up and running.
Unlike
many other motherboards currently available, the 8K7A+
does require the user to set a bank of DIP switches
for the CPU multiplier and set jumpers for proper
Vcore and Vio voltages (more on this a bit later in
the overclocking section). One great feature
that may help some users having installation troubles
is the inclusion of an on-board P80P debug (POST) card with an LED readout (visible in all
three photos). Should there be a problem, the
LEDs will display a code identifying the cause of the
error. Fortunately for us, we didn't have to
reference the error codes. Our board worked
perfectly from the start...
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| The
BIOS, Layout and Quality
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