Azza KT133BX Socket
A Motherboard
AMD's socket A Duron and Thunderbird
processors are taking the industry by storm. While the Duron was marketed
as a value oriented CPU it outperforms the Pentium III in many tests. Needless
to say that the Thunderbird has taken on the crown as the performance processor.
One of the biggest selling points for these processors has been their low
price. In many instances we find equal speed processors from AMD priced at
half what the comparable speed CPU from Intel costs. The one problem for consumers
who wanted to migrate to the AMD camp has been that the cost of a socket A
motherboard can be quite expensive when compared to the low price they paid
for their CPU. Another factor here is that socket A motherboards have been
slow in coming from many manufacturers, which left the adventurous first converts
getting any board they could get their hands on. We've had some good experiences
with Azza and their motherboards in the past and now Azza has sent in their
forthcoming KT133BX board for review. A similar board, the KT133TX has been
in production for socket A CPUs for some time, but the BX features something
that will be of great interest to users who aren't looking to upgrade their
board every few months: ATA100 support.
|
Features |
The
Board |
- Socket A AMD
CPU support
- VIA KT133+686B
chipset
- Award System
BIOS
- 1 AGP, 5 PCI,
1 ISA, 1 AMR
- 3 Dimm slots
- 3D PCI sound
on board
- 305mm x 210mm
|
|
First
Impressions
I was quite surprised at how
quickly the board showed up after my request for it. As soon as I opened the
package there were several things I noticed that already put a smile on my
face. We've seen some manufacturers place connectors on their boards in strange
places. Some locations - like a floppy connector located between the ISA and
PCI slots, were simply senseless. The KT133BX has none of those strange problems.
The two IDE connectors are located next to the floppy connector - and on the
edge of the board no less. The ATX power connector is located below and to
the left of the CPU socket. This lends to easy power connector routing that
doesn't block access to the memory or CPU. A note to other manufacturers in
this regard: if you place your connectors toward the interior of the board
it may help with ease of construction but users will quickly tire when their
cables obstruct access to the peripheral cards or block airflow to the CPU's
heatsink. Kudos to Azza for the intelligent layout of their board. Although
a lot of people won't worry about this I'd like to let everyone know that
Azza packs all their boards with top-notch documentation. It never fails that
with every installation I have to do a quick review of a section to find out
a detail about hooking something up - and the layout of this manual and its
completeness are very comparable to manuals I've seen from Abit and Soyo.
There were two cables shipped with the board: a floppy cable and one 80-pin
IDE ribbon cable for ATA66/ATA100 use. Since ATA100 is compatible with all
past standards feel free to use any HD you have with this board.
