ASUS A7V133

Introduction

When VIA announced the KT133 chipset, nobody thought much of it. With DDR-supporting chipsets such as the AMD 760, ALi Magik and VIA KT266 just around the corner, and DDR supposedly about to reach price parity with SDRAM, who would be interested in buying a whole new motherboard to support an outdated memory technology? But then, things didn't initially turn out as the DDR camp hoped: the ALi chipset's performance disappointed, as did the AMD 760's (though to a lesser degree), and the KT266 was met with delays. More importantly, DDR prices remained high, while SDRAM became dirt cheap.

Suddenly, KT133A motherboards became enormously appealing. With a default FSB of 133MHz (even for Duron processors), the capability to reach 150MHz on Athlons, the best memory performance from a VIA chipset ever, and the ability to fill up those DIMM slots at a low price, overclockers and enthusiasts began flocking to boards based on this chipset.

The KT133A is essentially a chipset for performance fanatics. Not only does allow you to run your system beyond specifications with great ease; it is also a "discrete" chipset, in that it features no integrated VGA. (Its south bridge does however provide support for integrated sound, which the manufacturers including have variously chosen to make use of or not.)

ASUS isn't really a company associated with overclocking. They have made great inroads into this market over the past year with their JumperFree BIOS, but to adjust the multiplier on early versions of their KT133 board, one still had to use jumpers. Indeed, the A7V133 bears traces of this history: the PCB is absolutely littered with jumpers and dip-switches. Fortunately, by leaving them all at their default positions, nearly all adjustments can be made in the BIOS, including the multiplier.

ASUS is however, a company associated with great quality and performance, so let's proceed to see how well they fared with the high-performing KT133A.