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Introduction

The 8KTA3's Funky Box

The VIA KT133 chipset has been a great solution for Athlon motherboards. With the release of the KT133A a few months back, we’re starting to see some excellent boards coming down the line with support for 133MHz Athlon CPUs (although these processors are just starting to enter the market now). The ABIT KT7A (RAID) is one such board which has proved to be a solid and stable solution.

EPoX has it’s own trick up its sleeve and it’s called the 8KTA3. This mobo is quite a departure from the previous 8KTAx boards with not only a newer chipset, but a drastically different layout as well. The most likely reason for this is because the older design couldn’t handle the faster FSB speeds that the KT133A sports. The benefit for end users is greater stability which is always a welcome improvement.

Here are the rest of the mobo’s specs:

Specs

CPU Interface Socket A (100MHz / 133MHz) Chipset VIA KT133A VT 8363A North VT 686B South FSB Speeds 100 / 102 / 104 / 106 / 107 / 108 / 109 / 110 / 111 / 112 / 113 / 114 116 / 118 / 120 / 124 / 127 / 130 / 133 / 140 / 145 / 150 / 155 / 160 166 MHz (via BIOS) Clock Multiples 5.5 – 12.5 in 0.5 steps Core Voltages -0.100 / -0.075 / -0.050 / -0.025 / +0.025 / +0.500 / +0.075 / +0.100 / +0.125 / +0.150 / +0.175 / +0.200 / +0.225 / +0.250 V (via BIOS) I/O Voltages +0.05 / +0.10 / +0.15 / +0.20 / +0.25 / +0.30 / +0.35 V (via BIOS) AGP Voltages +0.1 / +0.2 / +0.3 / +0.4 / +0.5 V (via BIOS) RAM 4 - 168-pin DIMM slots (PC100/PC133 – 1.5GB max) Expansion 1AGP (4x), 6PCI, 1ISA, and 4USB PCI IDE 2 ATA100 IDE channels (up to four devices) Other Onboard audio, Award BIOS, Onboard LED Debugging, 3-Phase CPU Power

The 8KTA3 definitely fills some gaps left by the 8KTA2 that we reviewed a few months ago.

The overclocking features are much improved over the 8KTA2 although they aren’t perfect. There is a fairly wide range of FSB speeds between 100MHz and 133MHz, although having 1Mhz increments is preferred. The range of speeds above 133MHz is definitely lacking which will limit the amount of overclocking that can be done with the 133MHz (DDR) Athlon CPUs (although these CPUs have yet to saturate the market in quantity). In the 8KTA3’s favour, these FSB settings are configured in the BIOS which is much more convenient than DIP switches or jumpers.

Also good news for overclockers, the range of voltage settings is excellent: great core, i/o and, AGP voltage settings all accessible from the BIOS. This will definitely help overclockers squeeze every last bit of performance out of their systems.

Like most of the KT133A boards, the 8KTA3 also has the HSF factory installed on the VT 8363A North Bridge -- another bonus for overclocker looking for more stability. After a quick check I found that this HSF combo is installed using some form of white thermal compound.

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