Product: 8K7A
Manufacturer: Epox	BUY ME!
Homepage: www.epox.com	£126.99 / $183.50 from our Online Store

Epox is a name that may be unfamiliar to some people, but they have produced one of the most talked-about SDR motherboards. Epox are a Taiwanese company that has been around since 1995. They have recently splashed onto the scene with their 8KTA3+ motherboard, generally accepted as one of the leading overclocking boards around today. Not content with breaking the stranglehold of Asus, Abit and Iwill, they have decided to take up cudgels again, and strike into DDR territory. And so we have before us, the motherboard in question, the 8K7A DDR.

Specifications

You can check out the full specs, through this link. Suffice to say, it uses the AMD 760 chipset, the most mature of all DDR chipsets. This particular chipset has a very good track record for stability coupled with speed.

The board comes accompanied by the usual suspects, drivers, ribbons, manual, usb ports etc. We understand that Epox will be introducing a new software package with their range of boards that will include: Trend Micro PCCillin (AntiVirus), Symantec Ghost, Power Quest Partition Magic and Power Quest Drive Image. The exact bundle will depend upon the type of motherboard and its "rank"

Layout

The physical set up of the board is logical. You can see below that it has a fairly wide pcb that comes in a deep emerald green.

There is active cooling for the Northbridge (AMD 761) chipset which is a necessity in these times of overclocking madness. The extra cooling should help you run the bus that little bit faster/more stable. The Southbridge is the VIA 686B which controls the onboard audio and hardware monitoring (Via Hardware monitor).

One of the best features on the board is the LED which can help with trouble shooting should anything go wrong. It lets you know what the board is doing at any time, with FF meaning fully functioning, there is a comprehensive list of error codes in the manual. Luckily, (despite our track record) this was the only code we saw!

The multiplier is controlled through a set of switches as opposed to the normal jumper setting method. I like the switch option as it requires little hassle to vary the multiplier, messing around with jumper caps is a real pain, especially when you drop one in the rig.

Other settings that will be of interest are the ram voltage, vcore and DDR volt adjustment jumpers. Most noteworthy here, is that both the vcore and ddr adjust allow you to increase the voltage by upto 0.4V This means that you can take your T-Bird to 2.1v as opposed to the usual 1.85v on most boards. I would be wary of winding the ddr up by 0.4v as this seems slightly too rich for my blood, but then I have killed some pc2100 (128 MB) and an Abit mobo this week, so poverty seems the name of my game!

As is common with the ddr boards, there are only two ram slots which means you should invest in the highest MB per stick you can get, i.e. 1x256 stick rather than 2x128 MB to avoid any future upgrade problems.

Installation

We were easily able to screw this baby into our Coolermaster removable tray, insert the CPU and attach our Taisol 742092 hsf (we use the Taisol since it is extremely easy to remove from the socket due to the screwdriver notch at the front). The capacitors are far enough away from the rear of the socket to not interfere with the installation, which can be a problem on other boards. The large surface area of the mobo allows easy access to most parts and you will not be reduced to fishing around for that lost screw with two fingers. This is how the mobo looks in the case.

You can see how each part of the mobo is easily accessible, a must for those who are constantly working in their rig or when you are upgrading or cleaning.

We set the jumpers to the required settings and we were ready to rock. Quite literally.

BIOS

A very important part of any motherboard is the BIOS. This is where you can optimise the system and gain extra performance with little changes.

We were using the latest BIOS direct from Epox (1521) which is reported to greatly enhance the stability and DDR performance. Epox has opted for a straightforward approach, with the main overclocking option coming under the heading "frequency/voltage control". This is slightly misleading because you cannot change any voltages here, they are all manipulated through the jumpers on the board. The FSB can be set decimally here, just by typing in the value from 100 to 166 Mhz. This allows a greater level of control and ultimately slightly higher clocks than those mobos that have set levels, of say 2Mhz steps.

The DRAM timings can be manually altered in the advanced chipset features sub menu. Strangely, our Crucial PC2100 CAS 2.5 memory was auto detected as CAS 2 .

The rest of the features here are pretty standard

Test Rig

Testing/Overclocking

This is our first motherboard review and therefore we have no data to compare these results against. Accordingly, we decided to take test the overclocking capability of the board and take a few benchmarks along the way. We will be using SiSoft Sandra 2001 SE Professional for the memory benchmark and 3D Mark 2000 & 3D Mark 2001 for the graphical testing (only running the default benchmark).

The multiplier, as I mentioned above, is controlled through the blue switching unit and the options are auto and from 5x to 12.5x. It is a simple procedure, but you have to shut down then disconnect power (optional but I recommend it) before diving inside the rig.

The first thing to notice about the overclocking potential for the 8K7A is the core voltage adjustment. You do not set it at a pre-set voltage but rather set it to default voltage +xxV. The settings are (default) + 0V to +0.4V. This means that with the T-Bird we were able to run at 2.10V. I have always felt that our overclocking attempts were being thwarted through lack of core voltage and that we could reach much higher speeds, with more stability, if we could just up the levels slightly. Well, here is my chance to test this theory. Let's go!

The T-Bird can handle most things thrown at it so we cranked the FSB up to 133 immediately with the multiplier at 10. Then we took a few measurements, first up is the memory. We ran the memory for all benchmarks at the speed that it was auto-detected, that is CAS 2.

The figures are much better than those of the reference AMD 760 chipset that SiSoft give by 10% and 19% respectively. Luckily, we have got something to compare this memory reading with, since we tested our Crucial RAM on the Iwill KA-266. Check those results...

We can clearly see that the Epox outperforms the Iwill when the memory is running at CL2 with a 133 Mhz FSB. In fact the Iwill's figures at 146 Mhz are equivalent to the performance of the Epox at 133 Mhz, a superb result but unfortunately the only comparison we are able to make. The outcome is that the Epox is superior to the Iwill on purely memory performance.

We then ran 3D Mark 2000 and 3D Mark 2001 to get some scores for the future and also to give you an idea of the performance against your own system.

Next we tried to take the FSB up as high as possible. With the Iwill, the top speed was 146Mhz but the Epox is able to go right up to 166 Mhz. We gave the RAM a bit of extra voltage to keep it happy and also pumped some more into the T-Bird for stability. In fact, we maxed out both settings. Who says we don't live dangerously?

I set the multiplier to 5x and the FSB stayed at 133 Mhz. Power on and no response? I reduced the FSB, vcore and DDR voltage but nothing made any difference. In the end I upped the multiplier to 5.5x and it booted first time. I am still not sure why it was reluctant to boot at this multiplier but then no-one buying this board should have reason to run a 5x multiplier! Then I set about the interminable task of increasing the bus by 1 Mhz then re-boot, restart etc. To cut it short, I managed to get to 166 Mhz. That was it, I couldn't go faster because the BIOS wouldn't allow us. I was amazed that we had got this fast, I was expecting to hit the wall at 150 Mhz, as other reviewers had found, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Once we were at the top there was nowhere left to go. Well, that's not strictly true - we then started to flick those little switches to see where the ride would take us. How high can you go at 166 Mhz? The answer is.....

1494 Mhz!!

We took the multiplier to 9x and could still run at 166 Mhz FSB, if we tried to go to 9.5x there were problems. I wasn't quite sure whether we could get it to run anything properly: so lets see what it managed. First up is the SiSoft benchmark.

Well check out these scores, coming close to the PC600 RDRAM, which is no mean feat.

Next we wheel out 3D Mark 2000.

Lastly 3D Mark 2001

The increased voltage was ultimately to allow us to crank the top speed up by a considerable amount, but the downside was the level of heat produced. The Taisol was not able to cope with such output and so we could not put the CPUs under full load. Even at idle the temperature was very high (42*C), but this is to be expected. Overclocking is all about overcoming such thermal problems.

The final test was to really push the CPU and find it's highest possible speed. We were slightly disappointed to reach 1522 Mhz (10x152) beating the previous record of 1496 Mhz (11x136). This was achieved largely through the stellar performance of the board's FSB.

We tested our Duron 700 Mhz on the board and were able to reach 994 Mhz (7x142) as opposed to our previous stable speed of 945 Mhz (Abit KT7A-Raid). This represents a 20% increase in clock speed. Behold this mighty figure!

Conclusion

This motherboard is a superb performer, with some nice additions, and is aimed squarely at the overclocking market. It is fast, stable and will allow anyone to push their CPU to the limit. We were able to hit the top FSB speed which was nothing short of amazing. We were expecting to max out at 150 Mhz but we were stunned twe could reach our previous record at such a bus speed.

Eventhough we had little data to compare against, the Epox blew the Iwill away. The Iwill was at the limit (146 Mhz) and could only produce scores that were equal to the Epox (when was running at 133 Mhz.)

As a purely overclocking board, the Epox has everything you could need and more. The voltage stepping allows previously unreachable levels (only possible if you modified the board at the risk of damaging it) and this is one of the many factors that make it so great. The board has no trouble in reaching the highest FSB available, which means you should get some good quality RAM to go with it.

The 8K7A was able to run both our CPUs at faster speeds than either our trusty Abit KT7A-Raid or the Iwill KA-266. It is the first board we have properly reviewed, so it gets the crown by default. However challengers looking to usurp the throne had better be something special. You have been warned.

It is the first overclocking board in this genre, with full multiplier, FSB and voltage adjustments. Others have made half-hearted attempts but Epox have really set out their stall with this product. Our verdict is: a superb board for overclockers venturing into the arena of DDR. Epox, you have done good.

The final Chillblast rating is *********

Check out Epox's site at www.epox.com

BUY ME! £126.99 / $183.50 from our Online Store

A big up to ***, who I would name but is liable to get a deluge of mails if I do, so cheers ***.

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