Overclocker Cafe - KT400 Mainboard Roundup

VIA KT400 Based Mainboard Roundup

AOpen AK77 8x Max

Six PCI slots accompany the AGP 8X slot and a CNR slot. Three DIMM slots, each capable of a gig stick of DDR each are placed fairly close to the AGP slot. As you have already seen, this is a common problem with mainboard layouts. With an AGP card installed, one or more of your DIMM slots will have their memory clips blocked in the closed position. With the AK77 8X Max, you lose immediate access to two of your DIMMs.

The Northbridge is cooled by a small active cooler. It is so shiny you would think it were chromed.

Three fan headers are about the board. One to the top right of the socket, a second next to the Northbridge (being used by the Northbridge cooler I might add) and a third in the lower right side of the board.

AOpen bills their board as "jumper free". It is almost jumper free but not quite. The ratio of your PCI to your CPU front side bus is set by the JP20 jumper. Here you can set things in one of four settings, 100MHz, 133MHz, 166MHz, or 200MHz. This is important otherwise you would be getting your AGP and PCI cards potentially WAY out of spec. An AGP's 2/3 divider on a 66MHz bus is 132MHz if you forget to change the jumper to the 200MHz bus setting.

Hats off the AOpen for putting four of the possible six USB 2.0 ports on the rear I/O plate.

BIOS

Multiplier adjustments are available from 5.5 to 18 and as we noted earlier, FSB adjustments are here for 100 up to 248MHz. The CPU voltage can be tweaked from 1.1v up to 1.85 volts. Now here is the new stuff for AOpen, DDR RAM voltage adjustments have arrived along with AGP voltage access. DDR RAM adjustments range from 2.5v to 2.65 volts. AGP voltage is open to select 1.5v or 1.6 volts. Memory timings are finally given the attention they deserve with much deeper adjustments than just the latency, precharge, and command rate. With the various brands and quality of DDR400 on the street now, this feature is a must.

Here is something I have always loved. Once you get your BIOS tweaked just right, you can save those settings in EEPROM so if you clear your CMOS or hose things up, you can default back to your settings you have in the "sweet spot."

Overview

The AK77-8X Max offers everything but the kitchen sink in the way of extras. Take the Vivid BIOS that allows you to skin your BIOS screen or the EZ Win Flash which is a feature that allows you to upgrade your BIOS from WITHIN windows. There are almost too many to list. No other board even comes close to AOpen in this department. For today however, we are keeping our vision keen on performance, price, and immediately needed features.