| ECS K7S5A (SIS 735 chipset) |
| The Little Wonder
(Review by MS, August 26 2001)
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Top
Specs
Features, Manual, Bundled Software, Quality
Layout, Integrated Peripherals
BIOS
Test Setup, Stability, Synthetic Benchmarks
Expendable, Quake3 Arena, 3DMark2001
Video Editing, Conclusion
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What you get
The K7S5A ships with the bare minimum of accessories, that is, the mainboard itself, one UATA/66 80 wire ribbon cable, a floppy cable, the driver CD and the printed manual. The latter showed some minor inconsistencies that will be corrected in the next revision but is otherwise admirably terse and well to the point. The major omissions concern the BIOS settings that could be explained a bit more in detail. Another concern regarding the manual is that the printed stop-action screenshots are depicting a VIA chipset-based setup with illustrations of how to install the 4-in-1 drivers. The manual states that the illustrations are examples only but since there is no real instruction for mainboard software installation, the user is left in the dark of what is available and what needs to be installed. Luckily the install shield interface of the drivers CD works very well except for the sound (see below).
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The driver CD contains the necessary software to install the integrated network device as well as the drivers for the Realtek AC97 audiocodec. Unfortunately, while the Network drivers appear to work with all Win9x operating systems, the sound drivers seem to require Win98SE or higher. In standard Windows98 (first edition) the sound cannot be installed without copying the necessary files from a Win98SE CD over. Even in that case, the sound device worked just fine in desktop applications, however, it was not possible to get any sound to work in gaming applications. A unique feature of the chipset is the fact that there is no need to install any busmaster drivers, the SIS chipset works just fine with the generic Windows drivers.
Software Bundle
Included on the CD within the utility folder are MediaRing Talk, PC-Cillin anti-virus, Super-Voice (Fax/Modem Software) and WinDVD as optional feature.
Quality
ECS mainboards have never had an issue with quality and the K7S5A is no exception. A three phase power supply circuitry feeding two switch voltage regulators per phase, each of which is backed by three 2200 µF capacitors is sufficient to provide enough clean power for the latest speedgrades of the Athlon family. Overall, the quality and finish of the board are excellent.
80/100 points, 10 points off for the "somewhat sloppy" intallation guide and lack of BIOS installation, 10 points off for missing sound drivers in Win98.
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