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In the Forums... |
Posted: February 18, 2001 Written by: Tuan "Solace" Nguyen Introduction  This review was intended to be a solo review of the new Asus A7V133 motherboard but I decided that it would be a good idea to contrast both the A7V and the new A7V133 so everyone can see what the differences are. Before going all out and saying that the A7V133 is the winner, I want to say that there is no winner. The A7V series are partitioned into different user markets and consequently come with different features. A person who has no use for RAID and wants to buy a Duron gaming system obviously has no use for the A7V133 but the A7V would suite him or her quite well. Since I just did a review on the Iwill KK266, I won’t go over the specifications of the VIA KT133A chipset too much; if you want to read it, jump over to that review -- the KK266 is a great board too. So with that said, let’s move forward. A Little Bit About Asus If you haven’t heard of Asus before, you better get to know it quickly because it’s one of the world’s largest motherboard suppliers. Asus also produces other computer equipment such as high-end laptops, CD/DVD drives, cases, servers, graphics cards, SCSI cards, and network cards just to name a few. They’ve been around for years and the Asus name is well respected internationally. If you want to learn more about Asus and what they do, surf over to their website here and look around; I’m sure you’ll find something that will impress you. VIA Influence If you’ve been with the computer world for more than 4 years, you’ll know that Intel was once the dominant supplier of both chipsets and processors. But it’s a new century, and a new time, and like all things, the best can’t stay the best forever. Along came a company named VIA Technologies that had a determined mission and VIA set out to rise. Today, VIA chipsets can be found in motherboards worldwide and don’t fall behind Intel’s offerings by any means. If it’s features and performance you’re looking for, VIA has what you want -- and more. Just recently, VIA acquired Cyrix, a company known for its poor performing Intel-alternative processors. Whether or not VIA can turn Cyrix into a real contender or not remains to be seen. When it comes to chipsets however, VIA has it made. The KT133 Series When AMD released its Socket A processors, VIA was quick to jump onto the bandwagon along with Ali, creating an enormous platform for the Thunderbird and Duron processors. VIA dished out its fabulous KT133 chipset which offered the following features: 200MHz DDR FSB Thunderbird/Duron support up to 1GHz and above Up to 1.5GB PC100/133 VC (virtual channel) or standard SDRAM Native UltraATA 66 support Full AGP 2X/4X The KT133 chipset quickly became the pinnacle chipset for AMD users seeking performance, stability and compatibility. After a few months, users demanded more and AMD also released more. As expected, VIA has now released a revved up version of the KT133, the KT33A. It now supports the following features: 200/266MHz DDR FSB Thunderbird (200 or 266)/Duron support up to 1.2GHz and above Native UltraATA 100 support The most noticeable change is the higher FSB support and finally, UltraATA 100 support. There isn’t any real change and won’t be until VIA releases its KT266 chipset. I’m feeling the upgrading itch all the time -- it’s insane. |
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