Lowest priced Athlon-XP board from ASUS
Written: Feb 16 '03 (Updated Feb 16 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Affordable, ATA-66/100 controller, 333-Mhz DDR support.
Cons: No SDRAM slots, SiS chipset, Athlon-XP 2000 conflicts.
The Bottom Line: Cheap but good board. If you can live with the name: SiS, than go for it.
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| janika's Full Review: ASUS A7S333 Motherboard |
Hello
Since we had the same computer for almost two years, it was time for us to upgrade. I know ASUS doesn't compromise when it comes to quality, reliability, etc. This is the reason I have ordered the system with an ASUS A7S333 system board. My main concern was to get a board that supports the AMD Athlon-XP processor. We already have another system in the family with the A7S333 and that system is functioning very well.
Basic specs:
The A7S333 socket-A motherboard is very similar to the A7V333 except the chipset. I was never too crazy about SiS chipsets as far as quality, reliability is concerned.
Probably that's why ASUS decided to go with the SiS-745 chipset, to be able to sell a low cost board.
This board consists of the following basic specs:
Supports Socket-A, AMD Athlon XP/Athlon/Duron processors
200 / 266MHz Front-Side-Bus (FSB)
SiS 745 chipset.
3-DIMM slots support up to 2GB PC-2700 and up to 3GB PC2100 / 1600 non-ECC DDR RAM (ECC means no error checking)
1 x AGP 4X, 5 x PCI slots. Optional AMR slot.
2 x USB headers plus support for 4 additional USB 1.1 ports. Six USB ports all together.
2 x Ultra DMA 100/66 IDE interface
C-Media CMI8738 6-Channel audio controller with three jacks. This on board audio is not bad and sound quality is equivalent to a SoundBlaster PCI-128 sound card.
ASUS C.O.P. (CPU Overheating Protection)
ASUS MyLogo, this is just a big, fancy splash screen during the boot sequence.
Wake-On-LAN, Wake-On-Ring, Chassis Intrusion support
Smart Card Reader (SCR) interface support
ASUS iPanel connector. ASUS PC Health Monitoring and ASUS PC Probe software. V2.16.00 can tell you the temperature of your CPU, Motherboard, the speed of your fans, including case fans. It also reports to you about the speed of each fan. The measurement is in RPMs. (RPM) = Rotation per minute.
The included CD also contains various applications and utility programs, like Adobe acrobat reader, PC Cillin Antivirus software. I do not recommend this Antivirus software unless you have nothing else to use. To get into the BIOS, you have to hit DEL on your keyboard while you see the big ASUS splash screen.
Things to like
The first thing that impressed me about this board is the price. We live in Canada and the prices are in Canadian dollars here. The retail price of this board is about $105- Cdn which is around $65- US. I couldn't believe that ASUS sells a board for such of low price. The second is the ATA-100 support. That's if your hard disk supports it. RAM support. I like the fact that I can install up to 3-Gigabytes of DDR memory in this board. I also like the idea of 6 USB ports. Most older and cheaper boards have only 4. Overclocking is also possible with this board. I do not recommend overclocking with the Palomino core Athlon-XP CPUs. Look for a Thoroughbred Athlon-XP. I like the MUTIOL bus technology with the SiS chipset. The overall performance is slightly less than those boards with VIA chipset but there are so many other things you can do to your system to speed it up. Another thing is, that this board is very quiet. Remember the old A7V133 boards with that small side, CPU fan? The new boards don't have one. thank God!
Annoyances
Not really annoyances but things I might need or miss on this board. First: There has been a known issue with this board and the Athlon-XP 2000+ processors. The board would read the CPU on a wrong frequency. This was the case with me too, since I do have the Athlon-XP 2000+ in this PC.
This problem is fixable however. Just download the latest BIOS update from here:http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=A7S333
Other things that would be nice are: SDRAM slots. This board only supports DDR memory modules. In the BIOS you can NOT change boot order. You can only enable / disable boot devices. If I want my PC to boot from a CD, than I have to disable the Floppy, than the hard disk first. After re-adjust everything back to normal again. Kind of pain in the neck procedure.
Summary
All in all, this is a motherboard that is manufactured by the best motherboard maker on the World. The name ASUS tell you quality, reliability and support. This board was created with the budget buyer in mind. The board is very affordable compared to other ASUS models and it has all the bells and whistles that the other ASUS boards have. The company has achieved this by implementing a low cost, mass produced chipset, the SiS-745. Make sure you download the latest SiS drivers and update your BIOS. I highly recommend this board for people building their own systems on a tight budget or clone shops. If someone tells you that they can't afford an ASUS board, Just send them here, to read this article. Thank you for reading. Please don't forget to rate this opinion at the bottom of the page.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 65
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Epinions.com ID:
janika
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Location: North America
Reviews written: 33
Trusted by: 7 members
About Me:
A hardware Gürü who likes computers, cars, travel & digital photography.
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