Well what can I say? This new revision of this board has onboard LAN, sound, 4 USB ports, 5 PCI slots,
1- 2x4x AGP slot, IDE Raid for up to 8 IDE devices. Let me just copy the info for ver 3.
"AMD ECS K7VTA3-RAID V3.1X Audio LAN DDR Memory
prod id: #53
Presenting the K7VTA3-RAID V3.X mainboard from ECS. It is an ATX mainboard that uses a 4-layer printed circuit board. The mainboard features a Socket 462 that accommodates AMD Athlon processors supporting front side bus (FSB) speeds up to 133MHz. The board comes with the high performance VIA KT333 chipset that comprises a VIA KT333 North Bridge and VT8233A South Bridge chipsets which combine support for the new high-bandwidth Double Data Rate (DDR)333 SDRAM. It provides features such as AC97 Audio Codec, AGP 4x support, Realtek LAN (8100B), and Promise IDE RAID (RAID 0,1) support. For expansion options, the K7VTA3 (3.1) provides 5 PCI slots, an AGP slot, and CNR slot. There are 2 USB ports, an EPP/ECP parallel port and two 16550 high-speed serial I/O ports, as well as an LAN connector. A range of audio ports is supplied, comprising line-in, line-out, microphone-in, CD-in and game port. Two PCI IDE interfaces support 4 IDE devices (PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, ATA 66/100). There are also PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. There is provision of two independent ATA channels to support another 4 IDE devices. The K7VTA3 (V3.1X) also comes with popular LAN/modem wake-up (wakens the system if there is an incoming fax, voice mail message or data transfer request), Keyboard Power On, Suspend-to-RAM features and hardware monitoring functions. This board is an excellent choice for any high-end PC, whether for gaming, office or DVI systems. It has been specially designed for users who want state-of-the-art technology at an affordable price."
This board only supports DDR RAM. I had considered a K7S5A board in an effort to save money on RAM,
considering I could use cheaper PC133 with it, but I finally decided it was worth spending a little extra on RAM and have a much faster setup.
I ordered mine from Electroseller.com and actually got a version 5 board that had 4 USB ports including USB 2.0 and Firewire, and also suport for an SPDIF audio connection. This is probably not an overclocker's board as there is only jumper settings for the front side bus. In spite of only being able to adjust the FSB with jumpers, there are a few tweaks available in the BIOS. The version 5 board comes with FSB settings of either 100, 133 or 166 unike ver 3. I was actually putting this particular computer together for a relative, but I thought it was pretty nice. After getting all the drivers loaded the board ran with no problems, stable, etc. This has got to be the cheapest board with IDE RAID out there. Currently it is $80 shipped at Electroseller although they even list it as ver 3. So if you want to buy one you might call to get them to look and make sure you are getting ver 5. I Like it so much I may build a few more using this board.
1- 2x4x AGP slot, IDE Raid for up to 8 IDE devices. Let me just copy the info for ver 3.
"AMD ECS K7VTA3-RAID V3.1X Audio LAN DDR Memory
prod id: #53
Presenting the K7VTA3-RAID V3.X mainboard from ECS. It is an ATX mainboard that uses a 4-layer printed circuit board. The mainboard features a Socket 462 that accommodates AMD Athlon processors supporting front side bus (FSB) speeds up to 133MHz. The board comes with the high performance VIA KT333 chipset that comprises a VIA KT333 North Bridge and VT8233A South Bridge chipsets which combine support for the new high-bandwidth Double Data Rate (DDR)333 SDRAM. It provides features such as AC97 Audio Codec, AGP 4x support, Realtek LAN (8100B), and Promise IDE RAID (RAID 0,1) support. For expansion options, the K7VTA3 (3.1) provides 5 PCI slots, an AGP slot, and CNR slot. There are 2 USB ports, an EPP/ECP parallel port and two 16550 high-speed serial I/O ports, as well as an LAN connector. A range of audio ports is supplied, comprising line-in, line-out, microphone-in, CD-in and game port. Two PCI IDE interfaces support 4 IDE devices (PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2, ATA 66/100). There are also PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. There is provision of two independent ATA channels to support another 4 IDE devices. The K7VTA3 (V3.1X) also comes with popular LAN/modem wake-up (wakens the system if there is an incoming fax, voice mail message or data transfer request), Keyboard Power On, Suspend-to-RAM features and hardware monitoring functions. This board is an excellent choice for any high-end PC, whether for gaming, office or DVI systems. It has been specially designed for users who want state-of-the-art technology at an affordable price."
This board only supports DDR RAM. I had considered a K7S5A board in an effort to save money on RAM,
considering I could use cheaper PC133 with it, but I finally decided it was worth spending a little extra on RAM and have a much faster setup.
I ordered mine from Electroseller.com and actually got a version 5 board that had 4 USB ports including USB 2.0 and Firewire, and also suport for an SPDIF audio connection. This is probably not an overclocker's board as there is only jumper settings for the front side bus. In spite of only being able to adjust the FSB with jumpers, there are a few tweaks available in the BIOS. The version 5 board comes with FSB settings of either 100, 133 or 166 unike ver 3. I was actually putting this particular computer together for a relative, but I thought it was pretty nice. After getting all the drivers loaded the board ran with no problems, stable, etc. This has got to be the cheapest board with IDE RAID out there. Currently it is $80 shipped at Electroseller although they even list it as ver 3. So if you want to buy one you might call to get them to look and make sure you are getting ver 5. I Like it so much I may build a few more using this board.
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