The KX133 System

KX133 System: ASUS K7V

Originally planned to debut shortly after the Athlon introduction last August, the VIA KX133 chipset suffered from a series of delays that pushed it back into 2000.

KX133 motherboards are just now beginning to hit the retail market en masse, on the eve of the introduction of AMD's second-generation Athlon processors codenamed "Spitfire" and "Thunderbird."

VIA chose an evolutionary approach with KX133: don't expect to find any exotic features such as RDRAM or DDR SDRAM. During the second half of this year both AMD and VIA will introduce Athlon chipsets with support for DDR SDRAM, and (in the case of AMD) Symetric Multiprocessing. (SMP) The EV6 bus will also get a slight boost to 266MHz.

So what are the main additions to the KX133 chipset? As we stated earlier, the primary new feature added to the KX133 chipset is the 133MHz memory bus.

The front side bus will still operate at 100MHz, but those of you with PC133 DIMM's will appreciate being able to take advantage of the added memory bandwidth PC133 provides. The other main addition is full support for AGP 4X operation. Here are the specs for KX133:

North Bridge: VT8371
Front side bus: 66/100/133MHz
Peak Bandwidth: 1.6GB/sec

Memory bus: 66/100/133MHz
Peak Bandwidth: 1.0GB/sec
Max Memory: 2.0GB (1.5GB PC133)

AGP 4X/2X
Peak Bandwidth: 1.0GB/sec

South Bridge: VT82C686A
ATA-66
4 USB Ports

For our KX133 setup, we decided to use the ASUS K7V motherboard. We've found the K7V to be a good performer, and, like previous ASUS motherboards, an extremely stable product. The K7V is by no means your average run-of-the-mill motherboard, with support for many front-side bus speeds, an AGP Pro slot, and a completely jumperless design. (With DIP switches and a few jumpers as an added backup.)

We've also received an Abit KA7 motherboard but haven't had it long enough to truly evaluate its performance. Look for an article related to the KA7 to debut shortly.