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Posted by
Toby Crundwell
on September 17, 2001
Manufacturer: ASUS
Product: A7A266
Socket A motherboard
Check
out latest
prices for the ASUS A7A266.
DDR
RAM
DDR
is becoming something of an industry buzzword, surrounded by
hype. The technology serves to deliver data on both sides of
a cycle. Traditionally, to transfer a piece of data (either
0 or 1) would take one whole clock cycle, measured in Hertz
(Hz). DDR allows data to be transferred on the falling edge
of the cycle, thereby doubling the throughput. However the
number of cycles (Hz) remains the same. Contrary to popular
belief, SDRAM is still only available in 100Mhz 133Mhz or
150Mhz versions.
The
new DDR versions of this memory are not sold as PC200, PC266
or PC300, as one might logically guess, but instead as
PC1600, PC2100 and PC2400. This confusing number is the
bandwidth, which can be worked out by multiplying the
effective frequency (200/266/300) by the bits (64) and
dividing the end result by the number of bits per byte (8).
All of which leaves us wanting to call it PC200, PC266 or
PC300.
The
A7A features three “normal” DIMMs for PC100 or PC133
memory. PC66 is no longer supported. In addition, it
features two extra DDR DIMM slots for PC1600 & PC2100,
and possibly PC2400 & PC2700 as well. It seems unlikely
that PC2700 (166Mhz DDR RAM) would also be supported, as the
Magik chipset does not officially support it. However, I was
intrigued when I saw an option in the BIOS to drive the
memory at this speed. Whilst it is totally feasible to run
memory at 166/333Mhz on the A7A, there is no option to set
the PCI divider to 1/5, or AGP divider to 2/5 either. This
means PCI cards would have to run at 42Mhz and AGP cards at
83Mhz. At these settings, it is quite possible to do some
damage. However, as some of you may recall from overclocking
BX based boards, peripherals can and do run at these speeds.
Additionally,
the A7A features a small jumper underneath the DDR DIMM
slots to increase the voltage supplied by a small 0.1v. This
is definitely a bonus, should you decide to overclock your
memory, although RAMsinks come highly advised.
The
problem with the new standards is the expectation. DDR
memory will speed up your system, but not by gigantic
amounts. The difference between systems running PC133 &
PC1600 is not noticeable. The difference between systems
running PC133 & PC2100 is relatively small in most
cases. Upgrading from my now-ancient PC100 saw a reasonable
performance increase however.
Technical
Specifications
-
Socket
A for AMD Athlon / Duron 550MHz ~ 1GHz+ CPU
-
ALi
M1647 266MHz FSB chipset with ALi 1535D+ South
Bridge
-
266/200MHz
Front Side Bus
-
2
x DDR DIMM Sockets (Max. 2GB PC2100/PC1600 DDR SDRAM)
-
3
x SDRAM DIMM Sockets (Max. 3GB PC133 SDRAM)
-
1
x AGP Pro slot, 4 x PCI 2.2 slots, 1 x PCI 2.2/AMR
Shared
-
2 x UltraDMA/100 IDE ports
-
C-Media
CMI-8738 PCI Audio Controller with 4/6-Channel
Integrated sound (optional)
-
3Com
3C920 100/10Mbps LAN Controller (optional)
-
4
x USB 1.1, 1 x Parallel, 2 x Serial, 2 x PS/2, 4/5 x
Audio I/O (Optional), 1 x Game/MIDI (Optional)
-
SIR
(Integrated Serial Infrared)
-
2Mb
Award BIOS, PnP, ACPI, SMBIOS 2.3, Trend ChipAway Virus
(TCAV), Green, Boot Block, BIOS
-
WfM
2.0, DMI 2.0, WOL, WOR, Chassis Intrusion, SMBus
-
Power
Loss Recovery, ASUS® JumperFreeTM,
CPU Throttle, SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
-
ATX
Form Factor: 9.6" x 12.0" (24.5cm x 30.5cm)
- Ready for Asus iPanel
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