The Epox EP-8K7A up and running: see the additional heatsinks around the MOSFETs (below CPU socket)
Epox EP-8K7A Features
The EP-8K7A is sporting the
typical greenish Epox PCB. The board gives a very solid impression.
The Epox has a 2-way-power supply - read more about this further
down under: "2- or 3-Phase Power Supply?" The corresponding
4 MOSFETs are placed on the backside of the PCB. The reason for
the unusual placement on the backside might be cooling related
or missing space on the front side. On the opposite side of the
MOSFET placements, we see several additional heatsinks. The 8K7A
has like the A7M266 only 2 DIMM sockets, although the contacts
for a 3rd socket are present. The 8K7A is available with an onboard
High Point HPT 370 Raid controller offering RAID 0 and 0+1. The
board layout is the best of all 3 candidates: the power connector
is at the best possible place. The Epox is offering a 6th PCI
slots instead of the useless AMR slot, the A7M266 and the GA-7DXR
are sporting. Anybody has ever used this? The Epox does not have
a separate sound chip, it is using the VIA Southbridge integrated
function. That is the cheapest solution among the 3 competitors,
and does not fit to such a high-end board. The quality of this
solution is not comparable with the 4-channel solutions from CMedia
and Creative on the other boards. If enabled, the Southbridge
integrated sound also takes away some performance from the CPU,
but we doubt that anybody will ever use this. The board has the
usual header for 2 additional USB ports. An additional rear- side
USB bracket with 2 USB slots plus the necessary cable to the board
header comes with the package. An interesting feature is a 2-segment
on-board LED monitor, which displays POSTcodes. That looks very
cool, but it doesn't help, when the case is closed. In terms of
provided information and ease of use, it can't match the Asus
IPanel.
The Epox is using the same Award BIOS V6.0PG as the Gigabyte, our so familiar "blue" friend. The BIOS is providing settings for the FSB frequency (maximum 166 MHz) and the CPU voltage. As a unique feature Epox is advertising a CPU voltage setting of 0.4 volts on top of the default voltage, which is 1.75 volts for the current Athlon Thunderbirds. That is of course a very interesting feature for any hardcore overclocker, because the maximum of 1.85 core volts, we get with most other boards, is not fully exploiting the overclocking potential of the newer Athlons. Our 8K7A did not deliver here. When set at "default+ 0.4" the core voltage should be at 1.75 + 0.4= 2.15 volts. The actual core voltage reported in the BIOS was hovering around "only" 1.97 volts. That is of course still higher than the usual maximum of 1.85 volts. The FSB frequency can be set in the BIOS in increments of 1 MHz, going up to 166MHz. Luckily, it is possible to change the multiplier, the most missed A7M266 feature, via a DIP switch block. The BIOS has the AMD 760 super-bypass function. Although described in the manual, our board did not have Suspend-to-Ram (STR) functionality. We also missed the advertised possibility to change the AGP voltage. Epox might address the missing points with the next BIOS revision. The tested (retail) BIOS made a somewhat unfinished impression.
The manual describes the most important settings, but doesn't explain what the different settings are for. That by the way applies to some extent also to the other 2 boards. What are all these AGP and memory settings for? You will find nothing about this. There is also basically no documentation about jumper settings. Missing explanations are not a problem for the hardcore overclocker, but certainly for the novice or even intermediate user. The EP-8K7A software bundle contains the necessary drivers for South- and the Northbridge, Norton Ghost and Norton Anti Virus 2001. The CD we received with our board however, did not come with the advertised Ghost software. A very friendly staff from EPOX Japan immediately sent us a replacement CD. The 8K7A does not come with an online flash utility to download and flash the BIOS from the Windows environment, as Asus and Gigabyte are providing. A hardware monitoring software similar to the "Asus Probe" and Gigabyte's "Utility Manager" is included.
Gigabyte GA-7DXR Features
As already mentioned Gigabyte
was the first manufacturer to market an AMD 760 board: the GA-7DX.
With no RAID, only 2 DIMM sockets, and the FSB limited to a maximum
of 133MHz, the 7DX is somewhat limited in its features:. The GA-7DX
however got good reports for stability and performance. The GA
-7DXR, which we are reviewing here, is not simply the RAID version
of the 7DX, as the naming might suggest. The 7DXR is a re-engineered
version, which becomes apparent when layout, features and performance
are compared with the 7DX. The first thing you realize with the
7DXR is Gigabyte's trademark blue PCB. The 7DX still has a brown
one. A golden colored heatsink on the Northbridge and 3 red IDE
HDD connectors make this board eye pleasing. The 7DXR comes with
4 instead of the 3 usual fan headers. The 7DXR has 3 DIMM sockets,
5 PCI slots, an AGP Pro slot with the necessary power connector
and unfortunately a useless AMR slot. Like many other Gigabyte
boards, the GA-7DRX has 2 BIOS chips, the second one serving as
fall-back against virus attacks are flashing failures. This is
life insurance against the worst-case scenario: inaccessible BIOS.
The 7DXR also has a "Guardian" function, which prevents
booting, when somebody is trying to run the board without a functioning
CPU fan. The 7DXR comes with the Promise Fasttrak 100 Lite RAID
controller providing RAID 0 and RAID 0+1. The controller can be
disabled via BIOS and via jumper. The 7DXR allows adjusting the
CPU voltage, the DDR voltage, and the AGP voltage. The Front-Side-Bus
frequency can be set in 1 MHz steps up to 250MHz. That is of course
only a theoretical value. Or did somebody expect to run his PC2100
memory at 2 x 250 MHz = 500 MHz? The FSB frequency and the CPU
voltage can be set via BIOS and DIP switch. The DDR voltage, the
AGP voltage, and the multiplier can only be set via DIP switch.
We counted not less than 10 jumpers on the 7DXR for numerous further
functions like WOL, WOR, USB wake-up etc., which we do not want
to explain here. All that makes the 7DXR the currently best-equipped
AMD 760 board. The BIOS comes with a "Top Performance "
function, which obviously provides for more aggressive memory
timings. Later we found out that this function works only up to
1450MHz. We are missing the AMD 760 chipset Super-Bypass-Function
in the 7DXR BIOS. This function seems to be enabled by default
as the performance comparison with the other 2 boards shows.
The software bundle contains the necessary drivers for the AMD 761 Northbridge (the AMD 760 AGP miniport driver) and for the VIA Southbridge as well as a hardware monitoring utility similar like the Asus Probe. The suit also includes a utility to download and flash the latest BIOS from the Windows environment. We used this, because our board came with the outdated F1 BIOS, and within a few seconds we had downloaded and flashed the latest BIOS. That is indeed a very handy and time saving feature. OEM versions of Norton Anti Virus 2001 and Norton Personal Firewall 2001 are included as well. The 7DXR comes with the Gigabyte propriety overclocking software "EASY TUNE". That allows changing the FSB MHz within the Windows environment. EASY TUNE worked well up to 1500 MHz. Above that, it got obviously confused with the thin air in this region and wouldn't work anymore.
The "first- glance" quality impression of the 7DXR is the best of all 3 candidates. All connectors, capacitors, headers, jumpers, DIP switch blocks are well placed and lined up. Not a single capacitor on this board came bended. There is detailed silk printing for every single DIP switch and jumper setting on the PCB. The bluish PCB color, with the golden colored heatsink and the red connectors makes the 7DXR look like a designer piece. It's obvious that Gigabyte designed and manufactured this board with attention for details. Based on many years of experience with quality issues of high performance products, we can tell you, that there is often a close relationship between the surface quality and the quality of hidden items. Manufacturers, who care about design and details, tend also to care about the non-visible things. We also noticed that Gigabyte included a RMA form in the manual.
The CPU temperature is taken via a sensor that is touching the bottom of the CPU PCB. That provides a more accurate CPU temperature reading than the usual in-socket sensor, the A7M266 and also the EP-8K7A have. The difference is significant: the GA-7DXR BIOS reported CPU idle temperatures always 7C to 8C higher than the other boards. The A7M266 BIOS for example, reported an idle CPU temperature of 32C with a room temperature of around 25C. Within the same environment and HSF the GA-7DXR showed 39C ~ 40C. I got suspicious, and shoved a flat temperature sensor in the small space between the CPU ceramic surface and the heatsink. Although the sensor was not even touching the CPU core, I got within seconds a reading of 37.5C .The BIOS reported only 32C. Prepare for a shock, when you see the truth about your CPU temperature for the first time when checking the GA-7DXR CPU temperature reading. As we got anyway inconsistent readings from the Epox, we do not report here any CPU temperature readings, because the CPU temperature readings of the GA-7DXR are not comparable with the 2 other boards.
