Re:

[John]

Scuzzy, I just read 3 different reviews of the board and all agree on it's stability. As I said earlier I am also looking to build a new system so I began pricing this board. Most prices I have found average between $115 and $159. One thing I noticed was that all of the boards I found all have onboard audio. During your research have you found any boards without sound and if so where.



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John

[scuzzy]

John,



I can't say I've paid much attention as to whether or not any of the boards have onboard sound. Although my preference is to install my own card, having onboard sound certainly doesn't prevent it. Besides, if the onboard sound is good enough for my needs, then all the better.



I do know that onboard sound drivers are better supported by operating systems, so that is a plus. Of course, the sound provided by onboard systems can't compare to that of a high quality sound card. Still, I generally don't get over-concerned about the sound quality, as long as it's decent overall.



As for the Epox 8KA7, I'll be pricing it when I get a chance. However, I'm impressed by the many reviews I've read concerning the board. By the way, the 8KA7 and the 8KA7 Plus are exactly the same, with the exception that the "Plus" adds RAID controllers and an extra $20 or so.



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Alex Garcia

[Neon]

Scuzzy,



I plan to follow the same course that you are, except I'm keeping mine, cause I need a new comp. As it happens, Epox 8K7A+ is the board I plan to get. I'm going for the RAID because it's a cool cheap way to get some speed, and it's only another $20.



After I get settled down (still unpacking boxes - ugh), maybe we can have a compubuilding race



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[pat]

Nice board. You pick a case yet?

You may be interested in this socket a cooler review.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1532

Pat



 

[K. Roberts]

I read over on the AnandTech form about some kind of 5 volt problem with this board. You might want to check it out. It looks like a very good board otherwise.



Keith

[scuzzy]

It looks like the Epox 8K7A+ motherboard is at the top of my list to build my AMD based computer. I found several reviews which gave this board some very high ratings. About the only thing "negative" I could find about the board was that it wasn't exactly an overclocker's dream-come-true, although it still received high reviews for overclocking. It doesn't matter to me, since I don't want to overclock, anywho, although it's nice to have the option. Every reviewer agreed on one thing, though - It is a very stable board, and easy to setup.



The following is from Motherboards.org:



Conclusion



This is one hell of a good motherboard and has features to impress even the most skeptical of users or integrators. AMD has finally come up with a chipset fast enough and stable enough to stand on equal ground with the big kid on the block Intel. EPoX has done a really good job of putting together a high quality board with this chipset.



With the price of memory as low as a pair of cheap sunglasses DDR is the way to go amigo and the 8K7A+ takes full advantage of the increased performance of PC2100 SDRAM, which is also the fastest memory available on the market in the current time frame. This is definitely a editors choice piece of hardware as it is stable as a piece of granite and the second fastest DDR motherboard I have seen. The Gigabyte motherboard model GA-7DXR showed slightly faster results in the test scores. This is way more difficult to obtain product though making EPoX a clear winner with the release of this motherboard. Good Job!



A Byte Above sells the motherboard locally for $179, but I haven't priced it anywhere else. From their website (Epox is down at the moment), here are the specs:



Specifications:



Accepts any Socket A AMD Duron or Athlon from 600Mhz-1.4Ghz;

Accepts up to 2 DDR DIMMs for up to 2Gb of Memory;

AMD 761/Via 686B Chipset and Award BIOS;

Support for 4 Ultra-DMA 33/66/100 EIDE Hard Drives and 2 Floppy Drives;

HyTech RAID Controller - supports up to 4 drives;

2 Built-in Serial Ports (16550) and 1 EPP/ECP Parallel Port;

6 PCI Slots and 1 4xAGP Slot;

4 Built-in USB Ports;

Accepts standard PS/2 Mice and Keyboards;

Fits Standard ATX Cases;

2 Year Warranty;



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Alex Garcia