ASUS A7V8X Motherboard Review

Former staff writer - November 17, 2002

Testing:

System 1 (A7V8X):

Asus A7V8X motherboard

Athlon XP 2100+ CPU

Samsung PC-2700 DDR Memory

MSI 40x16x40 CDRW

Windows XP

System 2 (KX7-333):

Abit KX7-333R motherboard

Athlon XP 2100+ CPU

Samsung PC-2700 DDR Memory

MSI 40x16x40 CDRW

Windows XP

SiSoft Sandra

Quake 3 Arena

GLExcess

3DMark2001SE

Conclusion:

Because of the problems I had with the my bolted water block, this motherboard may not be the ideal board for a water cooling enthusiasts. If it wasn't for that flaw, I would have given this board our OCC Recommended Award for Excellence. I still recommend this board to any other user that is seeking the best and latest technology packed in to one motherboard. While there are a lot of overclocking and memory tweaking settings inside the BIOS, it still isn't an "overclockers delight". My KX7-333R has a few other tweaking options that this board does not have, which may explain why the KX7-333R beat this board in one or two tests. The 3DMark2001SE benchmark with this board was astonishing. I'd really like to test this board with an AGP 8x capable video card to see what kind of scores I can get. Bottom line, this is a great performing board with tons of extra features and I recommend this board to anyone that doesn't have a bolted heatsink or water cooling setup.

Pros: