facebook rss twitter

Review: VIA KT400A Roundup

by Ryszard Sommefeldt on 26 June 2003, 00:00 4.5

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD), VIA Technologies (TPE:2388)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qase

Add to My Vault: x

EPoX 8K9A9I


Spec

EPoX 8K9A9I
Northbridge VIA VT8377A KT400A
Southbridge VIA VT8235CE
PCI 5 x 32-bit, 33MHz
Audio Realtek ALC650 PHY from VT8235CE
Ethernet VIA VT6103 PHY from VT8235CE
IDE 2 ports, 4 devices from VT8235CE
Memory 3GB DDR400, 3 slots
USB2.0 4 backplate
Firewire None
Serial ATA None
RAID None

After the feature fest that was the Lan Party, the EPoX suddenly seems a rather barren place. Nothing to shout about over the basic KT400A spec. A Realtec ALC650 for the audio, VIA's own Ethernet PHY and....that's it. No RAID, no SATA, no FireWire and only 4 USB 2.0 ports.

There's nothing more to say really, a bare board by all accounts, it's southbridge provided city. No bad thing I guess, depending on perspective.


Shot



Layout

EPoX aren't ones for flashy PCB's and UV ports. Just good old fashioned mucus green and a solid layout. Looking at it just like all the previous boards, the rotated socket gets a good flanking by some mean looking capacitors. Should make for stability when overclocking and running under heavy load.

Inside the socket, as seen in the above shot, is a bendy thermistor for under-chip temperature readings. More accurate than the little nipple style version more commonly seen? Probably not, but it's something to comment on all the same.

3 DDR DIMM slots in the same placement as all the other boards, followed by the 2 VT8235CE provided IDE ports, coloured blue, on the right, make up most of the rest of the top half of the board. The final parts are the passively cooled northbridge heatsink and the poorly placed ATX power connector. But it's common to all boards, we can't solely chastise EPoX for it.

A 6-port board can mean a lower than usual AGP slot and thankfully EPoX oblige. Plenty of room around the bottom of the DDR slots is the result, giving the tabs room for moving so you can replace memory without removing your graphics card.

Apart from the southbridge, we've got the hexadecimal POST monitor display (the codes are in the manual) so you can diagnose startup problems. More on them later in the review. Finally, the floppy connector is rotated horizontally, in nearly as bad a place as the Albatron. And that, as they say, is that.

BIOS, bundle and manual for the 8K9A9I now.

« PREVIOUS PAGE
NEXT PAGE »