Quality and Stability, plus Good Performance
Written: Jun 27 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Overlcoking, stability, quality, kx133 chipset
Cons: Integrated audio is a waste of silicon
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| jsnorman's Full Review: EPoX EP-7KXA Motherboard |
I got the 7kxa because it was the first board available with the kx133 chipset from VIA. I was a little wary given mixed performance of my VIA/AMD combos in the past (I had bad luck with the MVP3 series boards). I am now of the strong opinion that VIA has redeemed itself and Epox has emerged as the leader of the stability/overclockers quality MB for the AMD Athlons.
First, installation was a breeze. Out with the old MVP3, in with the new. The first thing I noticed about the board was a set of HUGE capacitors lining the AMD Athlon slot ... this was a good indication for me that the board was designed for overclocking!! I connected all my PCI cards, disk drives, cables etc. and it worked immediately without messing with jumper settings or BIOS tweaking (though there are jumpers for tweaking the Vcore voltage setting -- the default is to autoset the voltage which of course works as expected).
Second, I was able to overclock my Athlon using the BIOS!!! The BIOS enables changing the multiplier and voltage settings without ever popping the hood (WARNING: DO THIS AT YOUR PERIL). I was able to take my Athlon 550 to a little over 700 without any stability problems!!!
I have read numerous reports comparing the speed of the KX133 boards with the older AMD Irongate boards and showing very little difference. However, with PC133 memory (I used Micron PC133 memory) and an AGP 4X card (supported by the Epox 7kxa; I have a Hercules GeForce DDR) I am very happy and doubt that the old Irongate with AGP 2X and PC100 could match this board. Most important to me in choosing this board is quality and stability. With those criteria, I am very happy indeed.
Also, no problems running Windows 2000 or Linux -- though I note that some people have reported problems on other KX133 boards (probably driver related?).
Note that the Board comes with built in Soundblaster Pro audio, which I disabled.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
jsnorman
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Member: Jeff Norman
Location: Chicago, IL
Reviews written: 11
Trusted by: 5 members
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