Wednesday, February 21, 2001

Introduction

The EPoX EP-8KTA3 is a Socket A board like no other. By all appearances, EPoX really pulled out all the stops for the conception of the EP-8KTA3, which was seemingly inherently designed for Overclocking fans. Nothing has been left to be desired here, and no obstacles have been left before Overclockers in their mad race to squeeze every last cycle out of their equipment. Quite fitting for the board that is meant to be the last of the EP-8KTA series of motherboard, we must say... Let's take a look.

Configuration

Configuration of the EP-8KTA3 is accomplished from within the BIOS, as only a single jumper actually relates to the CPU. This jumper - named JP5 - can be used to set the FSB to a frequency of either 100MHz or 133MHz. All other adjustments are done from within the confines of the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu within the BIOS.

Once inside the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu, we were surprised by the sheer breadth of Overclocking options that were presented to us.

The first, and most obvious option was the ability to set the Front Side Bus frequency. Settings here included: 100/102/104/106/108/110/111/112/113/114/116/118/120, and 133Mhz when JP5 is set for 100MHz, or 124/127/130/133/136/140/145/150/160, and 166Mhz when JP5 is set for 133Mhz.

The CPU's clock multiplier can also be set to operate at between 5X and 12X. To be of any practical use, of course, the CPU you install has to come without the multiplier clock common to many modern Intel processors.

The next item on our list was the ability to adjust the Vcore and Vio voltages, and we weren't disappointed. Available settings are indicated in the table.

After playing with the CPU's voltages for awhile, our next surprise came in the form of an option that we haven't seen before in an of the boards we've reviewed previously: the ability to set the AGP voltage to between +0.1V and +0.5V from a base value of 1.5V. No doubt this handy function will prove useful in answering some of the stability problems that have been known to arise with AGP graphics cards when working with a bus of a higher frequency than that for which they were conceived.

Last, but not least, the EP-8KTA3 also benefits from an independent memory bus that can be set to operate at a frequency equal to that of the FSB, or else at a setting of 100Mhz.

Next: Technical details.