Electronic Heaven K7V & K7V-T
Written: Nov 19 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: AGP 4X , 4 USB ports , up to 1.5gb of ram, KX133
Cons: a little large, and no ISA slots
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| artic00cat's Full Review: Asus K7V |
***NOTE*** there is now a K7V-T that supports Thunderbird processors in the slotA format. Other than the processor support there is no difference between the two boards. My Thunderbird 900mhz slotA however did not work on my K7V only the K7V-T.
I have been an Avid supporter of AMD since they developed the K6-2 technology. I have followed them closely and believe firmly in their product. Thus when they came out with the Athlon I shortly afterwards when the prices came down a little I jumped on the band wagon. I purchased the Athlon chip and at the time an FIC - SD11 motherboard which I also have reviewed. Well Also a supporter of 3DFX I pre-ordered the Voodoo5 5500 Agp and decided that since the SD11 being in original format it does not support AGP 4X. So to get the full potential out of my soon to arrive Voodoo5 I decided to buy a board that supported the AGP 4X architecture, Enter the Asus K7V motherboard.
When I was originally deciding which motherboard to go with when I built my Athlon system I had considered the Asus K7M which by the way is another good board. However at the time Asus was going through a little bit of a complex, and the only way you could even find anything about the K7M on the Asus site was to literally run a search on the product. This made me a little skeptical so I went with the SD11 and have been satisfied until now. Asus now advertises freely on their site the K7M and the K7V, so this time I bought the Asus board as was my original intentions.
The board arrived at my house and when I received it I noticed that it is comparable in size to the SD11. Both boards are a larger size and for a motherboard and take up considerable room within the case. However both boards have a great architecture and leave plenty of room for expansion cards and cooling devices. The layout of the K7V is almost a duplicate of the SD11. The expansion slots, CPU slot , ram, and hard drive connections are in almost the exact same locations. This is where the similarities end. Unlike the SD11 the K7V has a AMR(audio modem riser) slot, and comes with the adapters and capabilities to allow you to utilize 4 usb ports immediately upon installation. The K7V also comes with the AGP Pro slot. This allows for utilization of video cards that have this type of connection, and Asus produces such video cards to work in this configuration.
The mother board installed easily and was painless as far as putting it in the case goes. I did notice that depending on how you want to use the board such as in " JUMPER FREE " mode, which is a nice feature that allows the mother board to adjust the settings and clock multipliers for your CPU automatically. That you should go over the jumpers on the board as although it is supposed to be set as a default for this option, I found that some of the jumpers were not however in the appropriate place to allow this to happen. Other than this everything else went smoothy and without problems. After setting it in jumper free mode I plugged in all the components and started her up. The BIOS and automatic configuration detected the CPU, hard drives, and amount of ram without any side effects.
After configuring the board and spending the time installing all the drivers and devices that I needed and making sure Windows 98 SE recognized them, rebooted the machine. I did notice a slight decrease in the amount of time it took to boot up, and a larger increase in how fast it moved through windows under the same configuration with a new motherboard over the SD11. The difference was not extreme but was noticeable.
The K7V comes in two models the K7V and the K7V-RM. The K7V being ATX and the K7V-Rm being micro-ATX. The form factor being about the only difference between the two boards. They both support Athlon processors from 500mhz to 1ghz, up to 1.5GB of ram, both PC100/PC133, AGP 4X, 200mhz FSB, and Ultra DMA/66. The K7V-Rm although I have not physically seen the board the second major difference is that there is only 3 PCI slots as opposed to the 5 PCI slots on the K7V. This more than likely means that the board is slightly smaller than the K7V but you also lose two PCI slots.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++SPECIFICATIONS++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
SPECS ARE PROPERTY OF ASUS..
Processor:
Slot A for AMD AthlonTM (K7) 550MHz ~ 1GHz CPUs
Fastest 7th Generation x86 CPU
Built-in Largest 128KB L1 Cache and 512KB L2 Cache
Chipset:
VIA® KX133 (VT8371) AGPset supports 200MHz FSB and 3.3V PC133 SDRAM & VC133
VCM (Virtual Channel Memory)
VIA® 82C686A South Bridge & Super I/O to Support UltraDMA-33/66, ACPI, SMBus, and Integrated AC ' 97 Compliant Audio Controller
AGP 4X / AGP PRO Slot for High-end 3D Graphics:
AGP Pro Slot with Universal AGP Connector and additional Power Connectors to Support High-end 3D or Workstation Class Graphics Adapters.
AGP Pro / AGP 4X / AGP 2X Graphics Adapter Compatible
System Memory:
3x 168-Pin DIMM Socket to Support Max. 1.5GB PC133 SDRAM & VC133 VCM (Virtual Channel Memory)
AC ' 97 Audio Ready:
Integrated AC ' 97 Compliant 3D Audio Controller
AD1881 3D Enhanced Codec
CPU / SPS / Chassis / 2nd Chassis FAN:
Total four Cooling Fan Connectors for Power Users
Three of the four have HAVE FAN Speed Detect Function
Expansion Slots:
1 x AMR (Audio Modem Riser) Slot
1 x AGP Pro / AGP 4X Slot
5 x PCI slots
UltraDMA/66 IDE Ports:
2 x Ultra DMA-66/33 EIDE Ports to Support Up to 4 ATAPI Devices
Support DMA Mode 2 and PIO Mode 3, 4
Support CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-R/RW, ZIP and LS-120 Drives
Onboard I/O:
1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port, 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
2 x USB Ports (4 USB Ports Upgradable)
1 x Parallel Port (EPP, ECP) and 2 x Serial Ports
1 x GAME/MIDI and Line-In/Line-Out/MIC-In Ports
ATX Power Connector:
ATX 20-pin Power Connector for 3V, 5V, 5VSB and 12V.
Support Soft Power Off
Wake-up on Modem, LAN, Keyboard, Mouse & RTC Timer
Supports AC Power Loss Recovery
BIOS:
Award® 2Mb BIOS with Full ACPI, DMI, Green, PnP, Trend® ChipAway Virus (TCAV) &
Symbios® SCSI
Jumper Setting by S/W (ASUS ® JumperFreeTM)
Vcore, Boot Media Selections
Package Contents:
K7V Motherboard x 1
Universal Retention Module x 1
User's Manual
Driver CD x 1
UDMA-66 Cable x 1, IDE Cable x 1
Floppy Cable x 1
2-Port USB Connector Set x 1
Board Size:
ATX Form Factor: 30.5cm x 24.5cm (12.0" x 9.6")
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The K7V in my opinion thus far the best Athlon based mother board yet. Asus has always built a quality product and lives up to it's name on this one. Just like it's predecessor the K7M both models of the K7V have features available that should appeal to those of you who like to over clock things. The mother board itself is overcloackable and easily I might add. The system has performed beautifully with no problems as of yet. This mother board is defiantly a winner and anyone who purchases it will be more than satisfied with the performance it yields.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 159
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Epinions.com ID:
artic00cat
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Location: New York
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