Monday, October 23, 2000

Introduction

The ECS P6VXA, which we'll be reviewing, bears a remarkable resemblance to the P6VAP-A+ from the same company. Based on the VIA Apollo Pro133A chipset, and featuring a Socket 370 CPU connector, P6VXA also features ATA100, among other things. By incorporating Realtek's "Avance ALC100 Audio Codec" into its circuitry, the P6VXA also manages to offer full AC"97 sound-card support. That said, let's take a look at the board itself.

The features

The P6VXA is expandable via 5 PCI slots, an AGP port, and an AMR slot. There are also 3 168-pin DIMM slots available, which can support 1.5GB of PC100, or PC133 memory. As you realize at this point, the ISA slot that was included in the P6VAP-A+ design has been ceded here in favor of an AMR slot; a step backwards in our opinion...

Configuration of the P6VXA is accomplished - almost in its entirety - from within the BIOS. The jumpers that the P6VAP-A+ once used to set the CPU's clock multiplier (BF1 through BF4), for instance, have been removed, and their functionality moved to the BIOS. In most cases though, this feature will prove useless, as most CPUs are locked these days. We do find jumpers JP7, and JP8 here, though, which can be used to force the FSB to operate at 100MHz, or 133MHz. Of course, to really adjust the processor, one must head straight to the BIOS menu labeled "Frequency/Voltage Control". From there, it's possible to set the FSB to a frequency of between 66Mhz, and 166Mhz, including: 66Mhz, 68Mhz, 75Mhz, 83Mhz, 95Mhz, 100Mhz, 103Mhz, 112Mhz, 124Mhz, 133Mhz, 140Mhz, and 150Mhz. From within the "Chipset Features Setup" menu, on the other hand, its possible to set the memory bus to operate at a frequency equal to, or 33MHz slower than the FSB.

Last but not least, jumpers VID1 through VID4 have also been removed from the P6VAP-A_'s design, which leaves users with no option for adjusting the CPU's Vcore voltage.

Technical details

Plenty of space is provided for the installation of a large CPU heatsink.

The memory slots are too close to the AGP slot. This makes it possible for the memory retention clips to come into contact with the AGP graphics card, essentially meaning that it must be removed before installing memory.

Six 1500Mfd, and twelve 1000Mfd capacitors have been placed around the CPU socket. This seems a bit stingy in our opinion, as a full complement of 2200Mfd capacitors would have been much more welcome.

The CPU locking lever is made of metal, and is shaped & situated in such a way that it shouldn't interfere with the installation of a large surface heatsink.

There are 2 fan connectors on the P6VXA, which is fewer than we would have preferred.

Hardware monitoring is controlled by an internal circuit within the chipset.

Manual assignment of IRQs is quite possible with this board.

A function exists which allows the BIOS to be reset to the last valid settings, simply by hitting the "Insert" key at cold start.

Next: Additional features.