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This is the first KT400 Motherboard we have had a look at here at PantherProducts. So first off we will have a look at what the KT400 is all about. What immediately jumps out at you is like the KT266 and the KT333 the number represents the speed of the memory it can take. The Asus A7V8X will take 2 banks of DDR 400 memory also known as PC3200. The board will also take the more standard DDR 333 or PC2700 memory up to the full 4 banks. The next thing we can look at in terms of the KT400 is this is the first chipset from VIA that has support for the new 8x AGP graphics cards. The connection between the north and south bridge of the chipset is also improved. VIA calls this process V-link. V-Link allows data transfer between the 2 bridges at 533Mb/s instead of the standard 266Mb/s Lets have a look at the full run down of the boards specs.
Serial ATA This is a new one for me and probably for most others of you. Serial ATA is a new way of connecting your storage devices. You will all be used to the way we connect IDE devices to out motherboards. We have a wide 40/80 pin wire plugged into both the motherboard and the storage device. These wires are big and bulky and often get in the way of a lot of other things inside the case. They are also based on Parallel data transmission which sends data in parallel cause interference with other signals. Serial connectors only have a send and receive cause much less problems in that respect. The serial cable is only a small thin cable as opposed to the bulky IDE cables. This helps with the airflow around the case and helps system cooling. The cables themselves can also be longer than the set limit of 40cm of the IDE cables. This makes it a lot easier to connect those awkward HD's at the top of a tower case. This board uses a controller to allow the use of Serial ATA Expect to see Chipsets integrate this technology soon next year. Also HD manufacturers are going to adopt this technology very soon.
Just what you expect from ASUS, a good solid board. Shouldn't have any problems running this one. Its nice to see that the AMD Athlon Thoroughbred is supported and so will not need a BIOS update in order to use it. However there are plenty of KT333 models out there still. If you are not going to be using DDR400 or 8X AGP then maybe this board might be a few pounds more expensive than what you would like. DDR 400 is not showing that much of an improvement over DDR 333 at the moment. It is however
always nice to have everything that new technology offers. 8x AGP cards
are getting more common and DDR 400 memory is being produced. Serial ATA
is going to be the next generation of storage device connectors and is
always useful to have that kind of technology to hand. Useful Links
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