Mike Andrawes van AnandTech heeft zijn review online geplaatst van de Epox 8KTA3. Dit Socket A bordje gebaseerd op de KT133A chipset heeft een handige 6/1/0/1 (PCI/AGP/AMR/ISA) layout en is voorzien van 4 DIMM sloten. Helaas is de omgeving rond de socket erg dik bewoond door capacitors en voltage regulators waardoor het plaatsen van coolers en de werking ervan wordt bemoeilijkt. Best jammer, want in het BIOS zijn vrijwel alle belangrijke overclocking settings aanwezig. Toch kreeg de Epox 8KTA3 een 8 als eindcijfer, vooral te danken aan zijn goede stabiliteit en performance:
There is no doubt that EpoX’s EP-8KTA3 is a big improvement over the EP-8KTA2 (KT133). EPoX took a lot of effort in redesigning the board, in order to improve the stability of the motherboard as well as putting in a lot of new unique features.
The migration from dipswitches to BIOS for all the overclocking features is a really big step by EPoX, and the P80P LED Debugging tool also aids you in troubleshooting. And if you go for the EP-8KTA3+, you also gain the advantage of having onboard IDE RAID.
However, the new design does have its drawbacks. The poor design around the CPU socket might affect the cooling of the CPU. With AMD processors running relatively hot at speed about 1GHz, cooling has become more important, and the current design takes the risk of blocking the airflow. The lack of 1MHz increments in FSB speeds also takes a big hit in overclocking, especially FSB speeds of higher than 140MHz are proved to be achievable.
If you really need a KT133A solution right now, the EP-8KTA3 should be a very good contender because of its reasonable price and the lack of choice in the market. However, if you can, it is definitely worth the wait to see how other upcoming KT133A motherboards will surprise us.
Bedankt Yiry voor de tip!
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