The Presentation

Slides?

Abit sent us a KA7 presentation this morning and we weren't quite sure what to do with it, so we decided to html the good parts and put it up for our readers. Each slide is relatively small 15-20k, with the exception of the 65k board layout shot.

Introduction

Key Features

As you may already know, Abit recently announced its new Athlon KX133 based motherboard. We'll have a review board soon, but for now you look at the slides and can gawk at the specs.

Board Layout

Specifications

More Specs

FSB Settings

Highlights

AMD K7 Athlon 200MHz FSB processor support
VIA VT8371(KX133) / 686A chipset
100/133MHz memory bus support
SoftMenu III - 1MHz increments from 100MHz to 183MHz
4 DIMM sockets w/ support for up to 2GB
6 chip data buffer set
AGP 2X/4X
6 PCI/1 AGP/1 ISA
UDMA 33/66 support
2 USB connectors/on-board USB header for two extra USB channels
Thermal sensor cable
4 fan headers

4 DIMMS w/data buffers

Other SoftMenu III Features

More Specs

Notes

We also talked briefly with Abit's Bernard Lam, and he mentioned that there will soon be support for UDMA/100 and that the board will also include a diagnostic LED device similar to the real testing cards Abit uses for in-house Q/A and troubleshooting. The 6 chip data buffer set should keep the board stable when all 4 DIMM sockets are populated.

The KA7 also features Abit's famous SoftMenu III which will give users access to all the FSB speeds between 100MHz and 183MHz in 1MHz increments. We're curious to see if there's a difference between overclocking with Abit's SoftMenu III or with a golden fingers device. We shot off a couple more quick questions to Bernard, and you can read what he had to say on the next page.