Computer builder's delight
Written: Sep 15 '02 (Updated Mar 20 '05)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Accepts both PC133 and DDR PC2100 RAM, inexpensive, integrated sound & LAN
Cons: Large motherboard (full ATX size), good quality power supply needed.
The Bottom Line: Broad CPU support assures a long life for this motherboard & integrated sound and LAN offer unsurpassed value.
|
|
|
| Bunch's Full Review: EliteGroup K7S5A Motherboard |
I purchased my first K7S5A in September 2001 for about C$85 and liked it so much that I bought another one a month later.
What initially attracted me was that I could use my old PC100 & PC133 RAM with this board until I decided to upgrade to DDR PC2100 (266MHz)RAM. I've since upgraded both boards to DDR RAM but did not notice much of a speed increase and benchmarks showed a less than 10% increase. From what I've read this is typical. I wouldn't suggest upgrading to DDR RAM if you're thinking it will double your memory performance, it won't.
I won't go into the specifications of the board since you can find this on the ecsusa.com website by downloading the manual.
Assembling my new computer with this board was a breeze. Windows XP is installed on one of the boards and it automatically detected ALL of the hardware including the onboard sound and LAN, very nice. Windows Me is on another board and I had to install the onboard sound & LAN drivers from the supplied driver CD, no problems.
One problem I did run into was the large size of the board. My 18" case has four 5 1/2" drive bays at the top of the case and this board has some components that block the top 2 drive bays so that I wouldn't be able to put in a CD-ROM or DVD drive. It's no problem since I still have 2 of these bays available but I wouldn't use anything smaller than an 18" tall ATX case.
Make sure you have a good quality power supply. I bought one Enermax 350Watt and one Enlight 350W power supply which work great but I've heard of a lot of people using no-name brand ones that are causing system crashes, reboots, etc.
I can confirm that both the ATI Radeon VE (7000) and the ATI Xpert 2000 Pro video cards work fine with this motherboard. [Update 5 Nov 02] I've just installed an ATI Radeon 8500LE 128MB that is working beautifully!
I'm using the onboard sound to play games (Wolfenstein, Quake3, Age of Empires II) and listening to mp3s. It sounds just fine for a stereo (2 speakers) setup.
The onboard LAN is optional and I would recommend it. I'm using it for my home network to share files and my DSL internet connection, works flawlessly.
Also want to mention there are 2 fan headers on this board. One for the CPU fan and the other for a general case fan, both provide rpm information for Motherboard Monitor or other system information software. There are 2 temperature sensors as well.
The upgradeability of this board is amazing. Running everything from a simple & cheap Duron CPU to the lastest Athlon XP 2600 and possibly beyond. There's lots of life left in this beauty.
If you are into overclocking (pushing components beyond their specifications) this is not the board for you. There is an unoficial overclocking BIOS available but options are limited.
This is an awesome value for a Socket A motherboard.
UPDATE 26 June 2003 - Both of my K7S5A motherboards are still running very well 1 1/2 years after buying them, both running 24/7.
UPDATE: 20 March 2005
I've since upgraded to an AMD mobile Athlon XP 2600+ running at 2140MHZ ! And with 1GB of RAM, this board is now pretty much maxed out. Still very happy with it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 55.00
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
Bunch
|
|
Member: Carleton MacGregor
Location: Montreal, Canada
Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 1 member
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.