ASUS A7V8X (KT400): The Athlon Gets DDR400

Board Layout

What we most liked about the A7V8X's layout was the positioning of the ATX 20-pin connector, which is situated toward the right end of the motherboard, although not as high as we would have liked. In general, this location allows for better airflow and doesn't restrict the user from adding or removing devices from an ATX-sized case.

We also loved the fact that the ASUS A7V8X included the four mounting holes around the CPU Socket. Users looking to make use of their Alpha PAL or Swiftech HSF's won't be disappointed, and neither will water cooling fanatics. Unfortunately, we've already gotten a hold of a few other KT400 boards that lack the four mounting holes, but we'll get over the lack of this feature soon enough. :)

There's also ample room around the CPU socket itself, so you should have no trouble installing or uninstalling your HSF (we can't say this for sure with all HSF's though). There are no capacitors impeding your way, although the CPU lever was somewhat difficult to unhinge (due to the angle it was positioned).

The one layout choice we didn't like was the positioning of the AGP slot and DIMM connectors. The A7V8X's positioning of these two items makes it difficult to uninstall memory if you've already installed an AGP card. We were able to uninstall the memory with an AGP installed, but we had to force the AGP card in the other direction a little. Interestingly enough, on one occasion, after uninstalling a stick of memory (which required us to force the AGP card a little in the other direction of the DIMM connector) we attempted to boot up the system but received no POST. We adjusted the AGP card a little, and successfully booted up. Clearly, the DIMM connectors are a too close to the AGP card (we used the rather large GeForce4 Ti4600 for testing).

Click here to enlarge.

On a final note, some have emailed in asking what the purpose of the blue PCI slot located at the very bottom of the A7V8X is all about. I emailed ASUS about this, as I was interested in what this slot functioned as. Here's what ASUS had to say: