Below are the increases in FSB frequency over stock we achieved:
Gigabyte GA-K8VT800M 12.5%
Epox EP-8HDA3+ 8.5%
MSI K8T NEO-FSR 8.00%
Asus K8V-UAYZ 7.5%
Chaintech SK8T800 7.5%
Albatron K8X800 Pro 5.5%
even supports SPDIF input through its Line-out jack or a dedicated pin-header (no extension supplied). The 5.1-channel audio is courtesy of a Realtek ALC655 codec, and there’s even jack sensing to detect whether you’ve attached speakers, headphones, or some other device.
The I/O laundry list turns next to stor-age. You’ll count a whopping six SATA headers on the EP-8HDA3+ for hard and (future) optical drives. They’re RAID-capable, too, thanks to the Silicon Image SiI3114 (RAIDs 0 and 1) and VT8237 southbridge (0, 1, and JBOD). Mind
you, the SiI3114 is on the 133MBps PCI bus, so you’ll probably want to keep your RAID 0 on the VIA controller. Not one to skimp, Epox supplies two each of SATA cables and power adapters, plus an extension cable that adds an external SATA data port to an expansion port bracket. That bracket also has a MIDI/gameport jack.
Curiously, both the users manual and a leaflet from Epox promise future support of RAIDs 5 and 10 through BIOS and driver updates. Well, we’ll see. With dedicated RAID 5 cards costing nearly twice the price
of this entire motherboard, it would be a coup for Epox to offer it as an add-in that doesn’t require a later revision of the board.
We’ve been burned before by other manu-facturers’ promises, such as new processor and FSB speed support that only material-ized with Rev. 2.0 boards, so we take this one with a bit of skepticism.
Reasoning that Athlon 64 buyers like their RAM in pairs, Epox skipped a third DIMM slot on the EP-8HDA3+. The board can use up to 2GB of DDR400. Its frequency and voltage settings are satisfac-torily granular for overclocking, and indeed, the motherboard came in second in our o/c standings.
“Retro” probably isn’t the right term for this board’s Radio-Shack-green PCB, but it does look good with its understated, gold-tinged northbridge heatsink. The EP-8HDA3+ sports four integrated USB 2.0 ports, so we won’t razz Epox for leaving out extension cables for the headers for four more. The company included the usual ATA/133 and floppy ribbons.
Notable features, besides a thorough manual that rivals Asus’s efforts, include Post Port. This is a P80P LED readout on the PCB that can report boot error codes. If you encounter a hang after an optimistic overclock, you can revert your system to default settings by pressing INSERT at startup. Finally, EZ Boot lets you choose the boot device by pressing ESC at startup rather than mucking around in the CMOS settings each time.
The EP-8HDA3+’s software CD included PC-cillin 2002 and Adobe Reader 6.0. Although all the artwork suggested we were getting Symantec’s Norton Ghost, as well, it turned out to be Norton Personal Firewall 2003 instead. Shucks. On the bright side, Epox thoughtfully included the SATA and SATA RAID drivers on diskettes to save you a step when you’re building your system.
Options we didn’t get with our sample were 1394a FireWire and ATA/133 RAID.
However, we did get an embossed Epox case badge and a “what the?” folding Epox desk calendar. More importantly, the com-pany’s tech support answered our online query about warranty coverage within an hour or two.
Gigabyte GA-K8VT800M Rev. 1.0 We paid: $95
Warranty: 3 years limited
In Gigabyte’s K8 Triton series comes this 754-pin, four-layer board. It’s named according to the company’s love of long strings of alphanumeric characters, but at least its model number doesn’t look like a phonetically spelled sneeze (GA-K8NNXP!
Gesundheit.)
The GA-K8VT800M is small, about 8.5 inches x 9.5 inches, to appeal to users who want to assemble tinier systems and media boxes. It’s also a nice teal color, although you won’t be able to tell under the dense white silkscreening around every compo-nent and contact. You’ll only get three PCI slots because of the smaller form factor, but the northbridge heatsink distracts you from this fact with some extra visual zip.
Like the Epox EP-8HDA3+, this Gigabyte has but two DDR400/333/
266/200 slots and a 2GB RAM maximum.
There are eight USB 2.0 ports in sum, although the four that aren’t integrated lie unfulfilled as headers without supplied extensions. Gigabyte did package a SATA, an ATA/133, and a floppy cable with the board. The RAID 0 and 1 options for the GA-K8VT800M’s two SATA ports are the work of the VT8237 southbridge.
A 10/100Mbps LAN comes standard on this board, thanks to a Realtek RTL8100C controller. In keeping with a small PC’s portability, the AGP 8X/4X graphics slot gets a retractable pin-retainer mechanism so the video card stays put. Note that AGP 2X cards are not supported.
Moving from video to audio, the GA-K8VT800M gets jack-sensing, 5.1-channel surround sound connections from an ALC655 chip. The ALC655 even brings SPDIF input and output to the table, but these are routed through a pin header for which there’s no extension bracket.
Phooey. There’s also no bracket for the MIDI/gameport header. In any case, your PS/2 keyboard and mouse, parallel port printer, and external serial dial-up modem all have homes on the back panel. Heck, there’s even a leftover 9-pin serial port in case you have to reconfigure an old broad-band modem or router.
This Gigabyte lagged behind in our synthetic benchmarks, but it emerged from the overclocking scrap as the champ with a 12.5% FSB increase to 225MHz.
Its o/c opportunities include a CPU host clock adjustment range of 200MHz to 455MHz, plus a Windows-based utility called EasyTune 4 for tweaking the RAM, AGP, and FSB. There’s also an Auto Optimize mode in case you’d rather let the board adjust itself.
Besides its overclocking trophy, the GA-K8VT800M also won our Halo fps
competition. Not that there’s a lot of drama in being 2.9% faster than the slow-est mobo of the six, but a win’s a win. By the by, Gigabyte’s tech support did reply to a question we had within a business day, but the department skips email con-tact in favor of an odd login message sys-tem on the Web site.
MSI K8T Neo-FSR (MS-6702) v.1.0 We paid: $93
Warranty: 3 years parts, 2 years labor from date of manufacture
This contender from Microstar was the only motherboard in our group to have passive heatsinks on its MOSFETs.
Those sinks are part of MSI’s LifePro fea-ture, which aims to extend the K8T Neo-FSR’s life.
This Neo was also the only board in this article that came with a rounded, two-device ATA/133 cable, in red to match the
PCB. Even the floppy drive cable was fold-ed, sleeved in a black mesh, and secured with heat shrink tubing. These cables will allow better airflow around them, helping your system to run cooler. MSI threw in two SATA data cables, plus a SATA power adapter that can support two drives simultaneously.
The K8T Neo-FSR’s three greenish DIMM slots support up to 2GB of DDR400/333/266/200. Its LOTES heatsink bracket and metal backing plate don’t come attached to the board, but
rather in a bag with the necessary bolts.
The software bundle includes the by-now-familiar PC-cillin and Acrobat Reader, and the manual is very good.
There are just two SATA ports on this Neo, but they do get RAID 0 and 1 sup-port through the VIA southbridge. Like the Epox board above, the K8T NEO-FSR comes with SATA RAID drivers on a handy diskette. Our particular board didn’t have the optional Promise 20378 ATA/133 RAID or FireWire. However, few boards in this roundup had PATA RAID, and FireWire was always up in the next price bracket.
This Neo offers better AGP support than the Gigabyte above, handling 8X/4X/2X/1X without a qualm. However, MSI says that the Realtek 8110S-32 chip behind the integrated Gigabit Ethernet jack doesn’t support 10/100Mbps connections.
For its part, Realtek says that the 8110S-32 is fully backward compatible with
10/100Mbps Ethernet, so it’s likely an implementation problem.
MSI packed four USB 2.0 ports into the backplane and made four more avail-able as pins on the motherboard. A two-port bracket makes two of the latter use-ful. That bracket, called the D-Bracket 2, also holds four LEDs. These form a boot status and error code display visible from outside the case.
SPDIF users have a choice of out-puts on the K8T Neo-FSR. There’s an integrated RCA-style output, but the line out 1/8-inch jack can also carry SPDIF out. A Realtek ALC655 awak-ens your surround speakers with 5.1-channel audio.
This Neo can wake from a set alarm time, the mouse, or the keyboard. Built-in ports include a 9-pin serial, parallel, PS/2 mouse, and PS/2 keyboard connec-tion. However, there’s no
provision for a MIDI/
gameport.
The CoreCell chip near the DIMM slots is responsible for a whole host of marketing terms features. Among these are MSI’s D.O.T. Dy-namic Overclocking Technology, which automatically adjusts the CPU frequency per its current load.
Cool-’n’Quiet in the BIOS adjusts the Athlon 64’s fan speed. Finally, Speedster offers over-clocking, LifePro pro-longs the life of compo-nents and fans, and CoreCenter is a combi-nation monitoring and overclocking utility.
This MSI had the second-best stock 3D-mark03 score, and was our third-best over-clocker. It joins Al-batron in the Three Year Warranty With Caveats Club, but note that the coverage period
starts when the board was made, not purchased.
Who’s Your Mama?
Our test results chart is, as we predicted, merely a formality. Sure, we found some variation in our boards’ benchmark scores, but we’re talking about a measly 2% overall delta in PCMark04 and just 0.7% in 3Dmark03. In other words, speed differ-ences among otherwise similar boards should be your last consideration when you buy a new motherboard.
So what does matter? Stock perfor-mance may not vary much, but stable overclockability does. Also, one board may have a killer feature at a price the others can’t touch.
Reliability and good tech support are paramount, which means that a manufac-turer’s reputation counts. However, this
isn’t a hard and fast rule. We’ve seen some erstwhile losers really turn their quality control around.
A great mix of features at a low price is exciting, but we would rather pay a few bucks more to get those features from a vendor with whom we’ve had better luck.
Never skimp on your motherboard; it will affect everything you do with your system in the future.
With all that in mind, we’ll call the Asus K8V-UAYZ your best bet. For $119, you’ll get a three-year warranty, ATA/133 and SATA RAID, a solid track record, Gigabit Ethernet, Instant Music Lite, an SPDIF output jack, and top stock speeds. The $93 MSI K8T Neo-FSR, $111 Epox EP-8HDA3+, and $95 Gigabyte GA-K8VT800M also have strong points.
by Marty Sems