I'm not very active at the moment as we're having a fair amount of building work done on our house a...
I'm not very active at the moment as we're having a fair amount of building work done on our house at the moment.
Member since:20.10.2001
Reviews:19
Members who trust:32
Not only does this wonderful Socket A motherboard have loads of great features, it also comes in a rather nifty plastic covered box with rope handle!
The Epox 8KHA+ KT266/A has been the recipient of loads of positive reviews from top Internet Hardware sites since its release a short time ago. If you check the Epox website (http://www.epox.com) you will be able to read any of the reviews (unbiased!). My humble review will try to outline the main features of this board and be as non-techie as possible, but the professional reviews will go that bit further. OK, on with the review! …..
Once you see the container box of the 8KHA+, you will have a fair idea of the sort of quality that is inside and you won’t be disappointed. The 8KHA+ is a top end board for those who wish to get the most out of their Socket A Athlons/Durons. The box is covered with a nice plastic cover which comes complete with a nice rope carrying handle, so forget your Harrods bags! Inside the fancy packaging you will find:
1 x excellent (totally jumperless) Socket A motherboard for AMD Athlons/Durons between the speeds of 600MHz and 1.4GHz.
1 x well written, easy to read user manual,
which walks you through all the BIOS settings and installation. Always read the manual before attempting to assemble the board!
1 x floppy driveribbon cable, complete with safety clips which stop the cable from coming loose.
2 x ATA 66/100 hard drive ribbon cables. (With safety clips)
1 x ATA 33 hard drive ribbon cable. (With safety clips)
1 x driver and utility cd-rom. (Has drivers for the board as well as Norton Ghost and PC Cillan 2000)
All items are securely packaged so there’s very little chance of damage should you accidentally drop the box.
Being a high-end motherboard, means that you will pay more than you would for a lower spec one, but this board is worth every penny of the £130 (you may get it cheaper if you search online) asking price. For your money you get loads of features that will help push your CPU to the limits! Here’s a brief rundown of some of the more important features that you get with this motherboard:
Socket A supporting AMD Athlons/Durons between the speeds of 600MHz to 1.4 GHz. (You can push it higher in the BIOS options though!)
3 memory slots supporting up to 1.5 GB of PC1600/2100 DDR RAM. (Min of 64MB. No mixing of PC1600 and PC2100 though!)
6 USB ports, 2 of which are built on, 2 more via the supplied USB connector cable and the last 2 via another USB connector cable which you can buy. (The cable costs around £5 or so)
6 PCI slots for your sound card, modem (if internal of course!) and all the rest. There are none of the older ISA slots though so you won’t be able to use any ISA cards if you have them.
1 AGP (x1, x2, x4) slot for your top of the range, super-duper graphics card. (Speeds controlled via BIOS settings)
Onboard AC97 audio with sockets for speakers, mic and line in. (This isn’t too bad compared to other onboard audio that I’ve heard & you could do a lot worse! You can easily disable this via the BIOS)
Built-on P80P Debug card which shows you boot errors in its nice digital display. There’s a list of the codes in the user manual.
Then you have the usual PS2 port, keyboard port, 1x parallel port and 2 serial ports which are standard on all modern motherboards.
Size-wise the board measures 305mm x 245mm, which more or less requires a full tower case to accommodate it. I would use a PSU (power supply unit) of about 300watts or more to make sure that you have enough power for all your bits and bobs.
When you venture into the BIOS (press the ‘Delete’ key on start up to enter) you will be confronted by loads of settings. Here’s the potential to fine tune your hardware (remember to set the BIOS to ‘Default’ settings on your first boot after installation!) or screw things right up if you’re that way inclined! You can change everything from your CPU settings (voltage & FSB) to the voltage & speed of your memory. This is a real opportunity for a healthy bit of ‘Overclocking’! If you don’t know what Overclocking is, then forget futering too much in the BIOS! As I said previously, there’s a good bit of help for the various settings within the user manual.
The user manual explains all the features of the 8KHA+ as well as the proper installation process. I like the manuals provided with Epox motherboards as they are generally well written, easy to understand and invaluable. Read through the manual before trying to assemble your board! Once you’ve installed your board and have the PC working, you can look through the manual for things to tinker with in the BIOS. You can assign a ‘hot key’ to switch the PC on (default’s ‘Ctrl + F1’) which is rather handy and saves a lot of bending! To be honest, there are too many features to mention so I won’t try. Have a look at the likes of:
For a better review of the 8KHA+’s features and options use any of the links below..
The driver/utility cd-rom that comes with the motherboard has the drivers for the board, Norton Ghost (for drive imaging, copying & the likes) and PC Cillan 2000 Antivirus. AVG is better in my opinion). There’s also the online manual, should you lose your hard copy.
In all, the 8KHA+ is an excellent motherboard that will help get more out of your CPU. Marks out of 10 would have to be 10 as I love this board!
Dec 14th, 2001
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