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Posted by
Per Hansson
on December 12, 2001
Company: EPoX
Europe / US
Product: 8KHA+
KT266A motherboard
Check
8KHA+prices
OR motherboard
prices list. Epox's
latest offering for AMD CPU owners has been built around the
VIA KT266a chipset, this newer revision of the chipset is
supposed to improve memory performance among other things,
first of all here we have some key points for the chipset:
-
Enhanced
Memory Controller with Performance Driven Design:
Timings have been improved, resulting in faster
transfers between the synchronized Front Side Bus and
Memory Bus. Also, the new memory controller with
Performance Driven Design can burst up to eight Quad
Words of data per clock, up from four in previous
designs. Data queues have also been deepened, allowing
faster and access to buffered data.
-
V-MAP:
The VIA Apollo KT266A is part of the family of VIA
Modular Architecture Platforms (V-MAP). As a modular
solution, the North and South bridge of VIA Apollo
KT266A are completely pin compatible with current and
future products.
-
High-Speed
V-Link Hub Architecture: The VIA Apollo KT266A makes use
of VIA's V-Link Hub Architecture, which provides a
dedicated 266MB/s bus between the North and South
bridge. Less advanced chipsets use the 132MB/s PCI bus
as a link, which must be shared with all PCI
peripherals.
-
200/266MHz
DDR Front Side Bus Support: Offering up to 2.1GB/s of
bandwidth, the 266MHz system bus perfectly complements
the high performance DDR memory subsystem and V-Link
bus.
-
AGP4X/2X
Support: Providing up to 1GB/s in graphics bandwidth
with AGP4X technology.
This list contains two
important things: the first would be that VIA has finally
been able to improve the memory performance of the KT266
with several improvements to the memory controller.
Unfortunately VIA is not giving out any more specific
details. The other important feature of the KT266A is hidden
behind 'V-MAP'. KT266A is fully pin-compatible with its
predecessor KT266, which means that you in theory could just
solder this chipset onto your current KT266 mainboard and
thus get the improvements above...
Unfortunately you will,
of course need to go out and buy a new mainboard but since
it is pin-compatible with the KT266, motherboard makers can
continue to use the PCBs (printed circuit boards) of the
previous KT266 boards. This will ensure that prices can be
kept relatively low and that shipment can be started very
smoothly.
When looking at the
actual mainboard you will notice that Epox has finally got
rid of all jumpers but two: one of course, is the clear CMOS
jumper, and the other one is used to select if you have a
100mhz DDR FSB processor (Duron or 200Mhz T-Bird) or the
faster 133mhz version (T-Bird 266Mhz and all Athlon XP
CPU's). A minor inconvenience with this jumper is that when
you change its setting, the BIOS is automatically reset
forcing you to reconfigure all your BIOS settings.
The mainboard is quite
large, at 30, 5 x 24,5cm it is just at the limit of the ATX
specification, make sure to measure your case so you know
that this big boy can fit in there!
Something else most
people surely won’t notice is that this board has more
screw holes than most other mainboards has, a great thing
since I’ve noticed many times when you put in a PCI card
the whole mainboard tends to bend for example.
Epox has also put an
“active” heatsink on the 8KHA+’s North Bridge in the
form of a small heatsink with a sleeve bearing Cooler Master
Fan on top of it. A nice move to keep the temperatures down,
but the thermal paste could have been better applied, (see
picture below). Though as the crazy overclocker I am, the
HSF was later replaced by an all copper Titan TTC-CUV1AB
cooler which was quieter, had better looks and offered
better cooling. ;-)
You will also notice
that the MOSFET's used to supply the mainboard with steady
power are located on both sides of the board, three on the
front and three on the back, smart move by Epox, which both
spreads the heat out more efficiently and gives free room
for other components. As a side note the MOSFET's can get up
to 60°C, and the IC above them can do 70°C under full
load, so you understand why it's a good idea to spread them
out...
The ATX power connector
delivering power to the MOSFET’s could have been better
placed though, while reassuring it’s close to them (and
thus offering steady and clean power), it’s not good
having to run it above the processor heatsink and reduce its
cooling capacity. Buy a few zip ties along with the
mainboard to remedy this small inconvenience.
There are a total of
three fan connectors of which two of them can be RPM
monitored. The first two are right next to the ATX power
connector; one for the CPU which can be monitored and the
other for case out, the last one is at the bottom right of
the mainboard.
The mainboard also
features the four holes around the CPU socket required in
some high-performance heatsinks like the Alpha 8045 and
Swiftech’s MC462. I had no problems installing those
heatsinks; there was enough room between the capacitors,
though it was a tight fit… It should also be noted that
the holes are of the smaller version, and thus you do not
need to use the nylon shoulder washers included with the
above two mentioned heatsinks.
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