This content was originally featured on Amdmb.com and has been converted to PC Perspective's website. Some color changes and flaws may appear.

Just recently, with my past review of the Gigabyte 7DXR motherboard, I started an entirely new and updated benchmarking system to follow for DDR, SDRAM and some different upcoming products as well. Having to redo a few weeks of benchmarking all at once was time-consuming, but in the end, the result was well worth it. And under these new tests, the 7DXR motherboard came out on top.

Many of you know that the Epox 8K7A motherboard was scheduled to be reviewed prior to the 7DXR, but a few things kept that from happening. The motherboard that Epox sent me was not their final PCB version, and they were working on an updated bios that improved memory speed quite a bit. While some would have posted a review on both revisions, since they were going to be released so close together, I decided that rather than waste our readers’ time, we would hold off on the review until we had quality hardware.

So, was the wait worth it? Gigabyte set a high watermark with their 7DXR motherboard but Epox is known to release mature, quality motherboards. Here are the specs:

Motherboard Specifications

CPU Socket

Socket A (133/266 DDR MHz Support)

Chipset

AMD 761

686B

Form Factor

ATX

Multiplier Options

5.5 - 12.5x

Bus Speed Options

100-166 MHz

Voltages

+0.1v - +0.4v in +0.1v increments

Memory Support

2 x 180-pin DDR SDRAM PC1600/PC2100 Support

Expansion Slots

6/0/1/0 (PCI/ISA/AGP/AMR)

AGP Support

4x AGP

USB Support

2x Standard USB ports

2x Expansion

Integrated Components

AC'97 Audio

Bios

Award Bios

Onboard IDE

2 x ATA100 EIDE

2 x ATA100/RAID IDE (optional)