ASUS has always been a reputed name when it comes to high quality high performance motherboards. So when it came to buy one for my system i was more or less sure what i was going to get. The other contender can be the ABIT KT7 but since my dealer was not giving that config i has no choice.
Anyways i have been more than happy with my system, barring some initial glitches (which i'll talk about later). The Motherboard has some descent design features including a daughterboard where ASUS has put all the capacitors resulting in a cleaner board (and enough space for those Heat Sinks). The power on the motherboard is also below the CPU so that the wire will not block CPU ventilation. The ATA & IDE connectors are also well placed... except being problametic incase u have a long AGP card. Other than that the layout is neat and clean.
Also the board has option for Jumperfree or Jumper control of the FSB speed, multiplier ratiio and CPU voltage. The good thing i liked is that jumper settings are printed on the board itself, so i don't have to juggle with the manual while changing the DIP switches.
The Board also has 4 fan options, one for the CPU, one for the North Bridge and 2 for the chasis if need be and the FAN speed can be monitored via the BIOS( or some tools available for windows like MBM 5).
I haven't overclocked my system but have read that this board is capable of higher overclocking the ABIT or MSi boards.

Now to talk about the bad points. For starters my system came with bios rivision 1004D which was a piece of crap as my system kept hanging all the time for unkonwn reasons. After breaking my head over various solutions i finally decided to upgrade the BIOS ( i read about this at www.AthonOC.com ). It worked like a dream. Another thing which might just be a nuisance is that the while installing Windows 2000 it didn't recognize my ATA-100 drive so i had to put it in IDE to install 2000 and then change it over to ATA-100 after installation. Yet another small problem is that ASUS has not provided a jumper for resetting the BIOS so one has to use a screw-driver over a small solder connection.

The A7V133 is an impressive KT133 motherboard. It has some solid performance numbers, and its stability is outstanding. On the other hand, there are still things that ASUS could have done better. Among them is the placement of the two IDE connectors by the Promise controller, jumper for BIOS clearing and improvement from just a Promise Ultra ATA 100 controller to a controller with RAID 0 support. Last of all, the inclusion of multiplier ratio settings in the BIOS, as well as 1MHz increments in FSB speeds settings helps ensure that the A7V133 is as user-friendly as the other KT133 boards.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 130