A surprisingly fine motherboard for the price
Written: Jun 02 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Inexpensive; SDR+DDR support; Speedy SiS735 chipset; USB support galore!
Cons: No ATA133 support
The Bottom Line: Excellent value for the money. As with any Athlon system, though (not just this board) you have to watch the power supply.
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| jjtucker's Full Review: EliteGroup K7S5A Motherboard |
A couple of weeks ago, I purchased an Athlon XP 2000+ processor and an Elitegroup K7S5A Pro motherboard to replace my old 1GHz Celeron and Intel i810E-based motherboard. I couldn't have been happier with the results!
Before going much further, I should mention that many of the K7S5A reviews on this site aren't clear about which version of the board they are referring to. There are at least three: the 1.0, the 3.0, and finally the 5.0 which is also referred to as the K7S5A Pro. The Pro version is most easily distinguished from the older versions by the presence of support for USB 2.0 (the purple color of the board may also be distinctive, but the older revisions may also be purple in some instances.) Apart from that, however, the 1.0 and 3.0 boards seem to be very similar, if not identical, to the Pro.
The K7S5A turned out to be a low-cost board with a wealth of great features. Supporting 200/266MHz FSB AMD Athlon and Duron processors up to and including the Athlon XP 2600+, plus both SDR and DDR memory support, it covers a broad range of price and performance options. The SiS735 chip has been noted in the media for its cost-saving single-chip design (most PC chipsets use 2 chips - a separate north and south bridge) low-temperature operation and competitive performance, and my own experience seems to bear this out. Unfortunately, the board does not support the ATA133 standard, so newer hard drives will have to settle for ATA100. However, you may never notice the difference.
Connectivity is not a problem with this board. There are 5 PCI, an AGP and an AMR slot present, plus Ethernet and 2-channel AC97 sound. The USB support is what I feel stands out (at least for my needs) - the SiS735 chip has built-in support for up to 6 USB 1.1 ports, but Elitegroup has taken this a step further by adding a VIA USB 2.0 controller chip to the board. Thus, all four ports on the motherboard itself are USB 2.0, and extra headers on the board allow the addition of more USB ports wherever needed (For example, there are two USB ports on the front of my case that I plugged into the motherboard. Perfect!) You have to keep in mind, though, that the first PCI slot and USB 2.0 cannot co-exist, so skip one slot between your AGP and PCI cards and you shouldn't get any nasty surprises down the road.
The BIOS of this board can be a bit confusing. By default, the processor and memory are clocked to the safe setting of 100MHz/100MHz so you will have to go in under "CPU PnP Setup" (not quite PnP, if you ask me) and change it to 133/133 if that's the speed your processor should run at.
The K7S5A Pro has been rock-solid. Together with this board and Athlon XP 2000+, I'm using a GeForce4 MX440 video card, SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 sound card, 80GB 7200RPM Maxtor hard drive, 52X CD burner and 16X DVD-ROM, first with 384MB (256MB + 128MB sticks) of Princeton PC133 RAM and later with one 512MB stick of Kingston CL2 PC2100, and the machine hasn't crashed *once* under Windows XP. I haven't had any of the problems others have reported, whether it be lost CMOS, non-working floppy drive, won't POST, whatever. None. Which brings me to the final part of this review:
When assembling an Athlon-based system, it's important to use a high-quality power supply. The total wattage of the power supply is not the issue, it's the current drawn on each of the voltage lines. (The PSU supplies several different voltages, each with its own tolerances for current draw. This is usually shown on a little chart on the label of the PSU.) A "Brand X" 400 watt power supply that isn't particularly strong on the 3.3-volt line may not work where a 300 watt unit (AOpen, in my case) that is strong in each of its voltages will.
When I built my first Athlon system for a friend, I was unaware of the power requirements and began blaming the motherboard (in that case, an SiS745-based Asus A7S333) for the difficulties - from POSTing successfully but freezing when the OS starts loading, to Plug-and-Play not working, to just plain not POSTing at all. IMMEDIATELY upon replacement of the second-rate 350W PSU with a model from Sparkle that met all the individual power ratings as specified by AMD, everything worked perfectly. I suspect that SiS's Athlon chipsets are even more susceptible to a weak power supply than others, so if you have problems with a system based on this board, start at your PSU and work from there. In years past, AMD would certify power supplies for Athlon compatibility due to the high (compared to Intel) power requirements. They no longer do this certification as far as I can tell, but as the power consumption requirements have not changed, the power supply can even be the difference between a system that works 95% of the time and one that works 100% of the time. Until you've seen the numerous bizarre effects an insufficient PSU can have on an Athlon system first-hand, some skepticism is understandable, but it's true!!!
For what it's worth: For my current system, I'm using the AOpen QF50A case with included 300W power supply. It's quiet, well-constructed, includes a high quality 300W PSU and, unlike with my old Intel-based motherboard, the connectors for the front-panel USB and audio just plug right into the K7S5A. A perfect match, so if you're looking for an affordable case/PSU combination that should cause little grief when used with this motherboard, check out the QF50A.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 58
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Epinions.com ID:
jjtucker
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Reviews written: 2
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