Introduction

DFI AD73-RAID KT266A Motherboard Review

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

Even though this will be my first published review of a DFI motherboard, I have had lots of experience with this company’s products. We began working with DFI back in 2001 with the release of the KT266 motherboard. I had the board, was testing it, but with the release of the KT266A chipset, we all agreed that reviewing the older board was pointless and I waited for the new KT266A motherboard to arrive.

After I had that, had tested it and started on the review, DFI was promising me an updated version of the motherboard with more features making it friendlier to the PC enthusiast market. Being that Amdmb.com cater to that market, I decided to wait for that board, the AD73, to arrive.

Now, we have that motherboard, tested it and are finally able to publish what I think is a complete review of DFI’s AMD line of motherboards: the cumulative end to a lot of work on DFI’s engineer’s part.

Many of you may not have even heard of DFI before as they are much more popular overseas and in the OEM market than they are with the DIY market. Since the move of Scott Thirwell from Abit to the DFI marketing staff, the company has been on a move to change that. I have gotten as many questions from DFI as I have asked them as they researched and tried to find out what the user wanted in their products. While not everything is in this particular model, I fully expect future DFI boards to implement most of what was suggested.

Here are the board specs:

Motherboard Specifications
CPU Socket Socket A (200/266 MHz Support)
Chipset VIA KT266A
Form Factor ATX
Multiplier Options 6x – 13x
Bus Speed Options 100-200 MHz
Voltages 1.725v – 1.85v
Memory Support 3 x 184-pin DDR DRAM PC1600/PC2100 Support
Expansion Slots 5/0/1/0 (PCI/ISA/AGP/CNR)
AGP Support 4x AGP
USB Support 2x Standard USB ports
Integrated Components none
Bios Award BIOS
Onboard IDE 2 x ATA133 EIDE
2 x IDE RAID ATA100

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