• Socket A for AMD Thunderbird / Duron 550MHz ~ 1GHz+ CPU
• VIA® VT8363 (KT133) AGPset supports 200MHz FSB and 3.3V PC133 SDRAM & VC133 VCM (Virtual Channel Memory)
• VIA® 82C686A South Bridge & Super I/O to Support ACPI and SMBus
• Onboard Promise® PCI-ATA100 Controller 
• System Memory: 3 x 168-Pin DIMM Socket to Support Max. 1.5GB PC133 SDRAM & VC133 VCM (Virtual Channel Memory) 
• 1 x AGP Pro / AGP 4X Slot 
  4 x PCI 
  1 x PCI/AMR Shared
• Special features including Power Loss Recovery, ASUS® JumperFree, CPU Throttle, STR (Suspend-to-RAM), SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)

Not bad, eh? The main gripe that I have with this board is the inclusion of the AMR (audio modem riser) slot which takes up space on the motherboard that might otherwise be occupied by a PCI slot. Alas, nothing is perfect, so I'll move on.

As you can see, the board also features a 1X AGP Pro/AGP 4X slot. In my travels prior to purchasing this motherboard, I heard many nasty things about this board's like (or dislike) of Nvidia based video cards due to the AGP subsystem. I'd like to report once and for all that there is no video issue that cannot be overcome by proper configuration and research of the video card as well as the motherboard. I had low frame rates out of the box with this motherboard, my GeForce II GTS 64, and the Athlon 1 Gig Tbird. After doing some tweaking (no, not overclocking at this point) and driver upgrades - I more than doubled my FPS in several games. Key to this issue is the use of the correct revision of the VIA 4-in-1 drivers for this motherboard (currently version 4.24) as well as the correct drivers for your video card. Before updating the drivers (as well as the BIOS), WCPUID was reporting that AGP was not enabled. After updating, I was at AGP 4X - and kicking some major FPS butt.

As is the trend in high end motherboards these days, ASUS has chosen to add a second IDE controller onboard to increase the maximum number of possible IDE devices to 8. ASUS has also kindly planned for the near future of storage technology by adding 2 Ultra DMA/100 ports as well as the typical DMA/66 EIDE ports for your HDD needs. I personally do not have any 100 drives yet, but you never know what the future (or Santa) may bring... The one issue that I encountered with the storage subsystem is the extremely long pauses during boot while the Promise onboard ATA100 driver searches for non - existent devices. I found that the latest Diver release (Version 1.60 Build 25 or later) was a quick fix to this issue, and the rig boots much more quickly now.

In addition, some of the hardware freaks out there have developed a RAID solution for the Promise controller - a mod I have not yet tried, but have a great deal of interest in. If you're interested in this mod, check out http://members.tripod.de/Juggernaut/ts_bootdelay/index.htm - it's an excellent site chock full of A7V troubleshooting / tweaking information.

The socket itself is pretty standard stuff - the only notable area here is that ASUS has made sure that there is plenty of room for the massive heatsinks / fans that the OC community is applying to processors these days. I had absolutely NO problem whatsoever installing first a Thermaltake Chrome Orb, and then a Thermaltake Superorb on this board. 

ASUS also appears to enjoy catering to excess in that they have included support for 7 (that's right - 7) USB devices. I personally do not know anyone that owns 7 USB devices, but it's sure nice to know that when I hit the lottery and buy 3 of every new toy on the market that my mobo is ready and willing to accommodate my whims.


In the overclocking arena, this board has all the features (mainly) covered through the inclusion of CPU multiplier dipswitches, VCORE jumpers and FSB dipswitches onboard. In order to overclock the processor, the CPU must have it's "golden bridges" connected. If you have no idea what I'm referring to, you should either forget about overclocking or spend massive amounts of time at www.hardocp.com reading the posts of the OC gods. Anyway, take my word for it - the board is extremely easy to OC, and the provided documentation makes selection of the correct settings a breeze. I'll be posting some benchmarks comparing the A7V to my MSI K7-Pro in the near future.

Finally, ASUS includes a massive pile of software designed to make your ownership experience a pleasant and simple one. An inclusion on the driver CD that not many people have picked up on so far is Cyberlink's PowerDVD and PowerPlayer software. This allows you to watch VCD and DVD movies on your PC. Of course you can only watch DVDs if you have a DVD Drive, however almost all PCs can run VCDs. 

ASUS Update - This application is a new standard across the board for all new Asus motherboards which allows you to automatically find and install new BIOS image, whether the image is on the internet or on your hard drive. This program automatically detects which mainboard you have and also auto selects where to get the new file from, making installing a new BIOS image a breeze. You can even flash the BIOS from Windows - without using the typical "make a boot disk" procedure that has made BIOS upgrades painful in the past.

ASUS PC Probe - This application allows for interactive monitoring of the system through Windows. You are given a ton of options in regards to monitoring / alarming of motherboard based system events. You can change the thresholds for fan speed, temperature, and software based CPU cooling easily. Again, yet another feature that adds value to the overall package.


In conclusion, I'd like to say that I would not hesitate to recommend this board to a friend, and am actually going to be buying some for use around the office as well. The combination of features is unbeatable - and combined with the power of the new Athlon chips.... I may actually be able to stop tweaking and upgrading my gaming rig for the near future.