DDR for Pentium III: 10 Boards with VIA Apollo Pro 266

Asus CUV266 - A Special Layout

BIOS - Award Rev. 1001 BETA 015P1 (21.02.2001)

Board revision - 1.04

As is the case with the majority of the boards tested, the Asus CUV266 also has a total of 6 USB ports. This striking board has been laid out unlike any of the remaining test candidates. Our guess is that Asus had originally planned to create a combined SDRAM/DDR SDRAM variant using this layout as a basis. However, the benchmark scores don't live up to the expectations that you would traditionally expect from this manufacturer. A noteworthy feature is the ACP Pro slot and its network capability (3COM) integrated into the board. The choice of placing an ACR slot next to the PCI slots seems somewhat shaky, since there are no components available for the ACR slot. Overclocking aficionados will definitely be taken with this board - the front side bus can be adjusted to between 66 and 202 MHz. Unfortunately, the granularity of the FSB-adjustments could be higher. In addition, the CPU core voltage has a wide range of possible settings.

The Asus CUV266 also has an ACR-Slot and a 100 MBit/s Fast Ethernet port. A 3COM chip (see picture) ensures that the board can be connected to a network. The ACR slot has the same shape as a PCI slot, but has been turned around.