ECS K7VMA Review :: Features

The K7VMA is an ATX motherboard that uses a Four-layer printed circuit board and measures in at a 304 mm x 220 mm. The K7VMA is a Socket 462/Socket A type board that utilizes the VIA VT8635 Northbridge and the VT82C686B Southbridge chipset. This chipset is a little dated for the high end user at this time but will fit the bill of many offices and lower end computers just fine.

The VIA VT8365 chipset provides an internal AGP 2.0 video solution onboard as well as supporting an additional 4X AGP interface with greater video flexibility for the user as well as the ability of working in many different application environments. The K7VMA gets its video through the built on Savage 4 2D/3D video accelerator and can use from 2 to 32MB of shared memory that will suit the needs of most office and low video requirement system applications.

For your memory needs there are three 168-pin 3.3V DIMM sockets supporting a maximum of 1.5 GB of PC100/133 SDRAM that is more than an adequate amount for any system requirement. There are two independent UDMA100 controllers supporting up to four devices running simultaneously in a two-master/ two-slave configuration. This is the standard configuration for most non-RAID/SCSI systems and is seen on almost all current ATX form factor motherboards.

If you need to use inline card solutions on the K7VMA the motherboard has four PCI slots one 4X AGP port and on rather useless AMR (Audio Modem Riser) slot which at the moment doesn't have any working devices available for consumer use. There is sound available onboard in the form of the AC97 Codec which is utilized through the 686B Southbridge chipset supporting Direct sound and two channel audio that works fine for most audio and gaming needs.

The K7VMA has a full set of I/O ports including a floppy controller, two FIFO serial port connectors, an EPP/ECP-capable bi-directional parallel port connector, a dual USB (Universal Serial Bus) connector, and both PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors. Also incorporated into the motherboard is the Flash upgradeable 2MB Award BIOS that has many feature options available for fine-tuning your motherboard. Always thoroughly read your manual and familiarize your self on the functions and features of the board so you can adjust it to its optimal performance settings.

All in all this is a pretty feature filled motherboard for the target it is aimed at as it covers most of the things that people look for in a quality motherboard. There are better but much more expensive motherboards out there but dollar for dollar if you want a board that is reliable and costs much less than many of the competitions products this may just be the motherboard you are looking for. I am sure this motherboard will find its way into the computers of many different people with various uses for the K7VMA being implemented by them. For what you get versus what you pay this is a champion of a motherboard and should satisfy the needs of many different applications. Lets se how the K7VMA did in the setup/ testing phase of this review. Read on to get all the details.