L O S T C I R C U I T S

Layout

Somewhat different but not necessarily bad, is the layout of the mainboard. The hybrid configuration of the SDRAM interface with two slots for SDRAM and DDR SDRAM each results in quite a footprint for the memory interface. Personally, I see less and less justification for a dual memory architecture since good quality DDR DIMMs can be acquired for less than $17 /128 MB. An additional concern is the limitation of the memory interface to two slots each for DDR and SDRAM which, at present may borderline suffice but with new operating systems like WinXP coming up may be somewhat short of breath. Moreover, as we'll show later, DDR provides enough performance boost to warrant the additional expense. The point is, that with any given system, there is hardly a reason right now to carry over memory modules that are older than 1 year. The progress in both the single data rate SDRAM and the DDR world really makes products older than 18 months obsolete in terms of performance, stability and power requirements.

To get back on track, because of the dual memory interface, the IDE channels as well as the floppy drive connector could not be fit into their usual position to the right of the DIMM slots and have been place in horizontal alignment in the lower third of the PCB. At first glance, this is unusual, however, all it takes is some ingenuity to see the potential benefit of this arrangement since it allows/ requires to run the ribbon cables to the upper drive bays over the far side of the AGP card. As unusual as this sounds, this solution has some merit in that the cables may obstruct the visual appraisal of the hardware but are completely out of the way when it comes to airflow across the case.

In terms of expandability, the K7S5A features five PCI slots as well as an AMR slot in addition to the AGP slot. The latter can, again, be considered a waste and ECS would have done better with a fully AMR device compatible, yet cheaper and more flexible Advanced Communication Riser (ACR interface).

The ATX power connector is placed at the top edge of the PCB, thus, there is no way that the power cables are in the way of CPU cooling. The area around the CPU offers enough space to even use the largest heatsink-fan combinations. In addition, the PCB provides mounting holes for direct mounting of the heatsink without using the SocketA as clip-on.

On-board sound

The ECS K7S5A is very rich in terms of its features. The integrated RealTek audio codec provides sound that, at least in desktop applications including AVI and MPEG playback appeared to be decent enough. As already stated, ECS only provides drivers for Windows98SE and higher, meaning that with the standard first edition of Win98 the sound may not work.

Network

One real advantage of the ECS K7S5A is the integrated network also provided by RealTek. Installation of the on-board device went flawlessly and in terms of performance, the integrated network worked precisely as well as any PCI add-on. Moreover, and this is the real goodie, installation of a second network card (in this case, the DLink DFE530TX+ was used) worked without any glitches and resulted in two fully functional network adapters. It is necessary to point out that installation of multiple network adapters is usually an exercise in IRQ and base address juggling, in this case, the only action taken was to insert the driver floppy and the Win98 CD. Why two network cards anyway? The answer is quite simple, it makes an ideal proxy server.

Jumpers and Connectors

The only jumpers present on the ECS K7S5A are those for enabling Keyboard Power On and for clearing the CMOS. Onboard connectors include the necessary audio channels, two extra USB ports (the chipset supports a total of 6 USB ports but only four are present on the K7S5A) as well as the infrared interface. A somewhat unique feature is the provision of a separate front-panel audio I/O connector to allow for a direct connection of any such device without complicated rerouting, as long as it is pin compatible.

95 points of 100, 10 points off for the inability to install sound under Win98, 5 bonus points for the ease of installation of two network cards.

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