LostCircuits, Mainboards

ASUS K7V
The Next Generation
(Review by MS)

Layout

The K7V follows very closely the original reference configuration for the KX 133 chipset powered mainboards. That is, expansion slots comprise the AGP Pro, 5 PCI and one AMR slot. The AGP Pro slot is basically a commitment to future AGP cards, currently there is not really a need for it, simply for the fact that there is no selection of AGP cards available yet. Strictly speaking, however, the graphics adapter market has the shortest turnaround time of all components, even in the PC market and, thus, within the next 2-3 months we will see the new technology hit the shelves. The K7V will be prepared.

Going away from the known always bears a certain risk, particularly the risk of unqualified abuse. Basically, in the case of the AGP pro slot, there is relatively little risk for inserting the card into a wrong position, the spatial limitations of the case provide a serious obstacle for inserting the AGP card into the left side of the AGP Pro slot. Nevertheless, covering the additional 20some pins with tape, is effectively another case of anticipating whatever human error could possibly lead to serious system damage and deserves honorable mentioning.

There is little to be said about the PCI slots, however, the lack of an ISA slot is certainly one of the weakest points of the K7V layout. Regardless of the production cost, on a high end board, there is little or no justification for the presence of an AMR slot.

Following the recommendations by VIA, ASUS is using the VT82C686A South Bridge. The advantage of the 686A part as opposed to the older 596C is the integration of hardware monitoring and audio codec. Consequently, there is no need to add the additional chips to the mainboard and everything can be held at smaller dimensions. The only problems with this argument are that:

a, the hardware monitoring functions of the C686A are limited (e.g.only two temperature readings). For exactly this reason, ASUS has added their own ASIC for hardware monitoring and, thus, the cat bytes its own tail.

b, there is no real need for onboard sound anyway. In addition, the trace layout is there to accomodate the Aureal Audio Chipset or similar but the chips are omitted from the PCB (Aureal filed for Chapter 11 yesterday).

c, integrated sound can be disabled in the BIOS. This, however, only works in a Microsoft environment, Linux will still recognize and utilize the on chip sound, regardless of whether it is disabled or enabled in the BIOS.

d, there may be other, marketing related reasons for the 686A over the 596C South Bridge but we feel that the latter might be a better solution.

The upper part of the PCB holds the ATX I/O connector block in PC99 compliant colors, as well as the SlotA CPU interface, the VT8371 North Bridge and the 3 DIMM slots. The latter three components have been moved as central as possible to keep trace length at the absolute minimum. The main drawback is that oversize coolers are protruding over the first DIMM slot. This is not necessarily a problem since, like in some other cases, the assignment of the DIMM slots is reversed so that the farthest slot contains banks 0 and 1. Consequently, as long as the banks are filled in ascending order, the innermost DIMM slot is the last one to be populated. The ATX power connector is located at the upper side of the DIMM slots and, therefore, is not in the way of CPU cooling.

A bit unlucky is the spatial configuration of the DIMM slots relative to the AGP interface since the presence of any graphics adapter interferes with the opening of the DIMM locks and makes exchanging of memory modules an acrobatic exercise. It is still possible, though, just inconvenient.

One detail that we have come to appreciate more and more is the power LED on the mainboard as a constant reminder that shutting off the power on the case does not result in complete discharge of the system. In other words, do not manipulate hardware while the LED is on.

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