Installation
What looks to be a standard feature on EPoX boards these days is the retention clip on the AGP slot which is good for those that frequent LAN parties :] . Unfortunately, depending on the length of your video card, access to one or more of the DIMM slots could be blocked. Very short cards (ie: the crappy ones :] ) won’t be a problem, but most cards out there will at least block DIMM1. My suggestion to those in this situation is to install the RAM into the first and second slots first so this blockage won’t be an issue.
The first DIMM slot causes its own problems by sitting so close to the CPU socket. The RAM sitting in this slot could potentially cause airflow problems for the hotter 1GHz+ CPUs which require a lot of heat dissipation.
This problem is compounded by the capacitors sitting above the CPU and the ATX power connector sitting to the left of those. Like DIMM1, the capacitors sit outrageously close to the CPU socket. In addition to that the wires from the power cable travel right over top of the heatsink/fan, compromising airflow even further. It is tough to predict the exact result of this, but it should be suffice to say that this warrants concern to extreme overclockers and those who plan on running the faster CPUs (ie: 1GHz+).
Unfortunately for overclockers, the capacitors around the CPU socket also prevent the installation of any of the Thermaltake Orbs, other than the MiniOrb. Other wide coolers could be effected as well, although I didn’t have any on hand to test out. This problem is also present on the 8KTA2, so this is one thing that was not changed despite the vastly different layout. On the upside, having these capacitors close to the socket keeps the power flow to the CPU cleaner and, as a result, increases stability.
Impressions
The 8KTA3 performed quite well in the stability tests. It didn’t crash once during 12 hours of looped Quake3 demo (demo001) and only crashed once in 10 hours of Content Creation Winstone 2001.
Test System
Operating systems:
Windows 98SE (v4.10.2222 A)
Hardware:
| CPU: | AMD Duron 700MHz |
| Mobo(s): | EPoX 8KTA3, FIC AZ11E |
| RAM: | 128MB Micron PC133 RAM |
| Video Card: | Visiontek Geforce2 Ultra (Detonator drivers v6.50) |
| HDD: | 30Gb IBM Deskstar 75GXP 7200rpm, Ultra ATA-100 |
| CD-ROM: | Creative 52X CD-ROM |
Benchmarks
 |
| Angled Shot of the 8KTA3 |
Sisoft Sandra 2001.0.7.10:
CPU Benchmark
CPU Multimedia benchmark
Memory Benchmark
Business Winstone 2001
Content Creation Winstone 2001
| Quake Timedemo | Demo001 |
| Resolution: | 640 x 480 |
| Color Depth: | 16bit |
| Lighting: | Vertex |
| Geo. Detail: | Low |
| Tex. Detail: | Low |
| Tex. Quality: | 16bit |
| Text Filter: | Bilinear |
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