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The Asus A7V is based on the VIA KT133 chipset, which has become the de facto standard for Socket A processors. The overall layout of the board is good, although it was hard to fit a fan due to the positioning of the socket's clip.
The A7V boasts UltraDMA100, and uses the Promise PDC20265 controller, so unfortunately you don't get the bonus of EIDE RAID. However, this makes the board marginally cheaper and you still get eight EIDE channels. Asus have supplied two EIDE cables with the board: one UltraDMA66/100 and one UltraDMA 33.
The board comes with an optional USB header in the box. There are three extra connectors and the ability to connect a further two for a total of seven. The A7V can do this as it has an extra onboard USB hub.
It also has an AMR and an AGP Pro slot: this is not a new standard for AGP, but was intended for workstation graphics cards that need more power than a normal AGP slot can provide. As such it is unlikely that many people will need it, but it is there if you do.
There are three DIMM slots for a maximum of 1.5Gb of Ram. The rest of the specifications are fairly standard, with the usual complement of PS/2, serial, parallel and USB ports at the rear, together with five dedicated PCI slots.
The board was easy to set up with a well-written BIOS that will appeal to the novice and more advanced user alike. Asus have produced excellent manuals that cover setting up the BIOS, installing drivers and so on. No documentation can quite live up to AOpen's, though.
When it comes to the driver CDs, Asus has supplied some software titles like PowerDVD and Yamaha DB-50XG software Midi player.
There is little in price difference between the Asus and a board like the Abit KT7-RAID for example, so a final purchase is more a matter of personal preference than anything else.
(Adapted from an original head-to-head review that compared the Asus A7V against the Abit KT7-RAID).
Contact
Panrix 0113 244 4958
See also:
All Motherboards
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