Test Marathon: 18 Motherboards With The VIA KT333 Chipset

After KT266A came KT333 - it took almost six months to get to this step. Even though talk of the KT400 was already in the air at the recent CeBIT 2002, the KT333 made it to the market first. And this is exactly the moment at which a transformation will take place in the market; boards with the VIA Kt266A chipset, somewhat outdated now, were recently considered to be a last cry, but the chipset's successor, the VIA KT333, carries on in its place. One thing is for sure: demanding users will want to make the switch. After all, in addition to an increased memory clock of 166 MHz, other interesting new features that the KT266A did not provide are now offered. However, users who keep a cool head will probably wait a bit until the next generation or two is available. If you want to wait for the KT400, you'll have to be patient, because DDR400 modules will come in a new mechanical design, named DDR II/400, and they aren't expected to be available before 2003.

The VIA KT333 supports DDR333 with a 166 MHz memory clock.
In the last six months, most of the AMD systems were sold with a motherboard that was equipped with the VIA KT266A chipset. Among all the chipsets that were available for the Athlon platform, the KT266A was the one that offered the best performance by far as well as extended functionality. Particularly when used with fast DDR166 memory (CL2), such a PC system can certainly compete with the somewhat more expensive competition from Intel, based on the Pentium 4.

New: the Southbridge of the VIA KT333 offers Ultra-DMA/133 support.
The problem: memory performance continues to be the aspect that drives development efforts for motherboards. In our recent article Unstoppable: DDR400 vs. Rambus we showed how memory affects the overall performance. With increasing processor speeds, the limited bandwidth of RAM puts a brake on the system. This is true for both the Intel Pentium 4 as well as the AMD Athlon XP/MP.
A marathon test: in a two-week long test, we evaluated a total of 18 of the latest motherboards with the VIA KT333 chipset. It didn't always run smoothly, and it's only through direct contact with the manufacturers that we were able to achieve the desired results. Often, the test runs were made with various BIOS versions and modified settings - we bring you detailed information and the practical aspects of each board, pluks 21 different benchmark tests with an integrated performance comparison to VIA KT333, KT266A and KT133A.
- Introduction
- Dilemma Of The VIA KT333: Still No USB 2.0 Support
- VIA KT333: Architecture
- GeForce 4 Compatibility: Not Unimportant
- Booting Via USB: The State Of The Technology
- Features Table
- Features Table, Continued
- Features Table, Continued
- Features Table, Continued
- An Overview Of All Boards
- Acorp 7KT333: A Classic OEM Product
- Asus A7V333: Thermal Protection And Jumper Overkill
- Aopen AK77-333: Not Feature-Rich
- Biostar M7VIF: Ready For Revisions
- Chaintech 7VJA4: Still In The Testing Stages
- Epox EP-8K3A+: The Quickest, Plus Crashes
- Enmic 8TTX2+: Fast And Stable
- FIC AN17: Past Its Prime?
- Gigabyte GA-7VRXP: One Of The Best
- Jetway V333K: A Typical OEM Board
- MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU: Strong On Features, Weak On Performance
- QDI KuDoz 7E/333-A: A Step Up To The Middle Class
- Shuttle AK35 GTR V2.2: More Performance Offered
- Soltek SL-75DRV5: Stable, With Thermal Protection
- Soyo SY-KT333 Dragon Ultra: Absolutely Over The Top
- Lucky Star K7VA333: Not Quite Mature
- Fastfame 6VQK: Latecomer
- Test Setup And Details
- Benchmarks Under Windows 2000
- OpenGL Performance: Quake 3 Arena
- DirectX 8 Games: 3D Mark 2001
- SiSoft Sandra 2002 Benchmarks: CPU And Multimedia
- CPU And Multimedia Performance: PC Mark 2002
- 3D Rendering Performance: SPECviewperf
- Archiving: WinACE 2.11
- Conclusion