Thursday, January 04, 2001

Introduction

The ECS K7VZA is an ATX form factor Socket A motherboard. Like the K7VZM that came before it, the K7VZA is based on the VIA KT133 chipset, but features greater expendability, and support for PC133 and VCM memory, as well as ATA66 drives. The K7VZA also happens to include a Codec Avance ALC100 circuit in its wiring, which is essentially an AC"97 sound-card. Let's skip down to the review...

The features

The ECS K7VZA is expandable via 5 PCI slots, an AMR slot, and an AGP port. There are also three 168-pin DIMM slots available, which can hold up to 1.5GB of PC100, PC133, or VCM memory.

Configuration of the ECS K7VZA is done from within the BIOS, where one may find the "Frequency/Voltage Control" menu - among other things - where from one may set the FSB to oscillate at frequencies ranging from 100MHz to 112MHz, including: 100Mhz, 102Mhz, 104Mhz,106Mhz, 107Mhz, 108Mhz, 109Mhz, 110Mhz, 111Mhz, and 112Mhz.

Unfortunately, no option is provided which would allow users to control the clock multiplier, or the Vcore voltage.

One final option is found within the "Chipset Features Setup" menu, and permits users to set the system to use either PC100, or PC133 memory.

Technical details

Little space is available around the CPU socket, which will make it difficult to install large coolers.

The memory slots are far enough from the AGP port to minimize the risk of a memory retention clip coming into contact with the graphics card.

Twelve 2200Mfd capacitors have been sprinkled around the CPU socket, which should provide excellent electrical filtration.

Two fan connectors have been included with the K7VZA.

The CPU retention bar is made of metal, so there is no chance of it breaking.

The K7VZA does make it possible to manually assign you own IRQs.

Hardware monitoring is controlled by the Southbridge.

Next: Additional features.