Motherboard Comparison Epox EP-7KXA vs. Asus K7V

Introduction

Before we will publish a large KX133-motherboard review, I decided to pick two particular candidates with this chipset, which are both available in the shops right now. VIA's Apollo KX133 chipset for AMD's Athlon processor was launched in early February this year and it is currently the best platform for this CPU on the market. I published a comprehensive review and a few follow ups about the KX133 platform, which you might want to have a look at:

• New Hope For Athlon - The VIA Apollo KX133 Chipset
• NVIDIA's New NT-Drivers for Athlon on KX133
• Irongate with Super Bypass vs. VIA Apollo KX133
• The Impact of the AGP-Speed

VIA's Apollo KX133 offers the following important features:

• AGP4X support
• PC133 SDRAM support
• 2 USB Hubs = 4 USB ports
• ATA66 IDE interface
• AC97 low-cost audio and MC-97 low-cost modem support
• 2 GB max memory support

Later on this year VIA will add the 'Apollo KZ133' and the 'Apollo KM133', both coming with integrated 3D-graphics (SMA = 'shared memory architecture'):

After that, supposedly around September, VIA will finally offer Athlon-chipsets with DDR-SDRAM support, probably called KX266, KZ266 and KM266.