..:: Introduction ::..

EliteGroup Computer Systems, more commonly known as simply ECS is extremely well known for their line of cost effective mainboard solutions. To put it plainly, there are very few that have the capability to offer the price to performance level that is brought to the table by ECS. This, among other reasons is why ECS is frequently swapping spots with Asus as the leader in mainboard production. Another factor that makes ECS mainboards stand out has to be their use of a purple PCB. When the mod craze started, we saw several manufacturers begin to use different color PCB’s in an attempt to expand their market, and it has been fairly successful. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the ECS K7VTA3 v3.1 motherboard based off of VIA’s renowned KT333 chipset. Can this budget board surpass our older, high performance A7V266-E? Let’s find out.

..:: Specifications ::..

Processor

• 462 pin Socket A supports the AMD® Athlon (K7) processors
• Full series of Athlon XP / Athlon / Duron processors

Chipset

• VIA KT333 (NB) & VT8233A (SB) Chipset
• LPC I/O - IT8705F
• System Hardware Monitor: Integrated in IT8705F
• AC97 Audio Codec (Compliant with AC97 2.2 specification)

Memory

• Three 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets for 2.5V DDR SDRAM (DDR333)
• Up to 3GB memory size

Expansion Slots

• 1 AGP 4X slot (supports 1.5V and 3.3V AGP 1X/2X/4X cards)
• 5 PCI slots
• 1 CNR

Onboard LAN

• Realtek RTL8100B 10/100 Base-T Fast Ethernet Controller

Onboard Audio

• AC'97 2.2 two channel codec

Onboard USB

• VIA VT8233A USB 1.1 support
• VIA VT6202 USB 2.0 (Optional)

I/O

• 2 USB ports
• 2 serial ports
• 1 parallel port
• 1 PS/2 mouse port
• 1 PS/2 keyboard port
• 1 Game/MIDI port
• 1 RJ-45 LAN Port
• 3 Audio jacks: line-out, line-in and mic-in

BIOS

• Award 2Mb Flash EEPROM
• Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, AMP 1.2, Multi Boot, DMI
• Support for ACPI revision 1.0 specification

Onboard IDE

• ATA/133/100/66
• 2 IDE connectors

Onboard RAID

• Promise 20265 Controller
• ATA/100/66/33
• 2 IDE connectors