I
borrowed the picture from AOpen's site. Feel free to click on the picture
to get the slightly larger version. Unlike the AK33 the PCB of the AK73 is
packed with components. The bottom inch of the AK33 featured a message imbedded
in the PCB but obviously there is no room for that with this board.
It's time
to point out a few details about this motherboard. First, there are no ISA
slots to be found. I don't see that as a bad thing at all - but its something
to consider if you have an ISA component you don't want to replace. The second
big thing to notice is that the AMR has resurfaced. As far as I am concerned
I think all AMR slots should be removed since AMR components aren't available
to the masses yet. I liked that the AK33 was totally devoid of an AMR slot
- but since no PCI slots were removed to accomdate it I can live with it sitting
there. Who knows, perhaps we'll see some widely available AMR components soon?
The ATA-100
connector and IDE connector are located just below the three memory slots.
The floppy connector is adjacent to these. The ATX power connector is located
towards the top of the board (when its mounted) so it should be pretty easy
to get the ATX power cable attached without any fuss. If you look at the picture
on the upper left corner are all the audio inputs. This is reminiscent of
the AX34
Pro II that AOpen sent for review. One thing that isn't apparent in the
picture is that this board is equipped with an AGP Pro slot. You won't have
any problems plugging in your AGP card and there is a neat little locking
clip at the bottom of it just like on one of the memory slots. I tried it
out with a few different cards and they all fit great including a 3dfx Voodoo
3 card.
I'd
like to take a moment to point out that 3dfxCOOL
sent us the heatsink/fan unit used for testing with this board. The Socket-AHO
(Socket A High Output) was designed for Socket A from the get go. There are
far too many stories of people crushing their pretty new Socket A CPU because
they used a Socket370 heatsink on it. Bart Lane recently lowered the price
to $15 from its original $20 - you can't beat that price for such a large
high-quality heatsink. It even comes with a high output 60mm fan on top of
it. The clip that holds it on is AMD approved - which is insurance for those
who don't want to make a keychain out of their new CPU. Bart even has other
Socket A stuff for your overclocking pleasure so I recommend you check out
his stuff. We've never had a product that Bart sent us go bad, and his products
are always of the highest quality. Nuff said?
