ECS L7VTA (KT400): 1st with 333MHz FSB Support

ECS has been in the motherboard business since 1987. Sixteen years later, they are the second largest motherboard maker in the world in terms of pure shipments. The same holds true for 2002, as ECS is only a hair behind ASUS in motherboard shipments.

You could say that ECS's success is due to their low-cost manufacturing facilities as well as a smart business model in general. ECS was the only motherboard manufacturer smart enough to leverage the low-cost yet high-performing SiS 735 Athlon chipset last year. Based on the SiS 735, the ECS K7S5A was a huge hit among hardware enthusiasts and OEMs alike. At the time, the K7S5A offered the highest performance out of any K7 solution, and yet only cost around $70 to buy in the U.S. (and was similarly cheap in the rest of the world). OEM's loved the low-cost nature of the ECS K7S5A, great performance was just icing on the cake. Of course, enthusiasts fell absolutely in love with the K7S5A; the price/performance ratio was unbeatable.

Motherboard manufacturers like ABIT and Shuttle are already outsourcing a good deal of their motherboards to ECS for manufacture, and it's no wonder; ECS is simply the master of low-cost production. Despite the success ECS has enjoyed in the motherboard market, they are quite a strong force in the laptop market as well, specifically the desknote industry (a desknote is a heavy "desktop replacement" laptop). ECS has had a huge amount of success with their i-Buddie line of laptops, in addition to other such products. While the semiconductor industry is feeling the heat of a cyclical recession, ECS has smartly expanded into other industries (laptop market) while maintaining their status as the second largest motherboard manufacturer.

Today, we bring you ECSs' latest creation, the L7VTA motherboard based on the VIA KT400 chipset. You'll find that ECS has really gone all out with the L7VTA, offering a wide array of features options, and all at a value price tag…