DFI AK75-EC Motherboard Review

Author : Wayne Date : 1st May 2001

3DVelocity would like to thank DFI and especially Eliza (Huang Yi-Chin) for their help and courtesy in providing this motherboard for review.

About DFI :

DFI is one of the world's leading manufacturers of motherboards that use the latest chipsets available from the top manufacturers such as AMD, Intel and VIA. Based just outside of Taipei, Taiwan, and with regional offices in the USA and Europe, DFI is a global player that combines modern technology with traditional values. Constantly gaining rave reviews from the media and users alike for both the quality and speed of its mainboards, DFI prides itself on an incredibly low failure rate, which stems from its world-class R&D and team, an insistence on only the best materials being used and stringent quality controls. State-of-the-art manufacturing facilities couple with great logistical solutions to ensure DFI stays one step ahead of the competition. So why haven't you heard more about them? well, that's mainly down to DFI's focus on the OEM market, where they have an impressive reputation with system builders for solid performance and low returns.

The Board :

The AK75-EC is your standard, 4 layer PCB motherboard built around VIA's KT133A chipset. The KT133A is basically the same as the earlier, and very succesful KT133 but with added support for AMD's 266MHZ AthlonC. One thing the KT133A has going for it is that it has had time to mature, and with the latest 4in1 drivers, many of the earlier niggles have been eliminated.

As I said at the top of this review, it's pretty unlikely that any board based on this chipset is going to show performance figures that lift it far beyond the norm simply because VIA's reference design, and the limitations of the chipset itself serve to peg performance at a pretty standard level. So if all boards are roughly equal in performance, how are you supposed to choose the one that's right for you? Well, they may perform within a few points of each other, but there are other issues that need to be taken into account such as stability, features, flexibility to handle future processors, voltage handling, design and layout, after sales support and price to name but a few. Let's take these issues one at a time and see how DFI stacks up.

Stability:

Despite the hype most motherboards are incredibly stable, with the majority of crashes and freezes being related to driver or software problems. The only things likely to stall your motherboard are heat, voltage or signal timing problems, the latter of which are quite rare. Why do I say that? well, the PK-OCK7 device which we supplied to VIAHardware was designed to sandwich between your CPU and socket, and in doing this added several milimetres to the path taken by the signals to and from the CPU. The fact that the system remained completely stable for the duration of the tests shows that there's a lot of marketing hype goes into the pushing of features like an offset Northbridge that claims it adds stability by shortening the traces. Heat and power problems are more likely candidates for system instability, though still rare assuming you have done your part with regards case ventilation and using a quality PSU and CPU Heatsink. By far the most likely cause for instability comes from overclocking, but even here provided heat is conquered and the components are within their upper limits, you should see no major problems related to motherboard function.
To confirm stability on the AK75, I simply looped the 3DMark2001 demo for 2 hours at a time with various settings increased beyond their regular levels. Increasing FSB, memory CAS, CPU multiplier, CPU voltage and so on had no effect on system stability. Combine this with the AK75's 3 phase voltage circuit, which I'll cover later, and I can say confidently that I have no question about this board's ability to perform solidly even when the demands are raised.

Features:

The AK75 comes with the usual array of features such as 4xAGP, AC97 audio, ATA100 support, Wake-on-ring/LAN, ACPI, STR, voltage/temp monitoring and so on, but there are one or two key features that make this board a bit special.

Although there's no diagnostic LED's, a feature I have learned to love, there are several LED's scattered about the board that offer some useful information. Above PCI slot 1 for instance you'll see an "AGP4xLED". This basically lights if you slot a 4xAGP capable card into the AGP slot. Also, over to the left of PCI slot 2 is a standby LED which lights when the system is in suspend mode or is off. This is a great reminder that you need to unplug at the mains before adding or removing peripherals in order to shut off the constant 5volt supply that is needed to power up from the on/off switch. Of course you can only see this information with the case open which makes them slightly less useful.

I did test the AC97 audio and it was pretty impressive, offering full duplex operation and DirectSound/3D support. It won't however appeal to anyone who has a good quality soundcard to hand. Unusually, disabling the onboard sound wasn't a bios feature, but involved changing a four bank jumper (jp4-7) as can be seen to the right of the standby LED (left of PCI slot 2).

ATA100 HDD support is catered for by the VT82C686B southbridge, provided of course you use an ATA66/100 IDE cable, one of which is included in the box along with a floppy cable.
An unusual feature of this board, and one I've not come across before, involves the case function connectors. The pins that DFI have used here, rather than being vertical, bend through 90 degrees.

This seemingly pointless feature actually proved to be something I became rather fond of. To begin with, it was far easier to see what you're putting where as all the groups of pins are separated. Secondly, if you catch one of the wires you don't bend the pins, you just tug the connector off. The final benefit is that once connected, you can see exactly what's what.

One of the things most newbies seem to struggle with is getting these connectors in the right place, and DFI have taken a huge step in the right direction with this idea. Of course, if somebody would take the step of creating a standard arrangement, then case manufacturers could use a solid moulded plug rather than lots of separate fiddly connectors.

On the health monitoring front, several useful features are offered. In addition to the now common ability to report both CPU and system temperatures and fan rotation speeds, the board will also monitor CPU fan rotation during boot-up, and it will automatically power the system down if no rotation is detected. This great feature can be a problem if you use a cheap fan with a slow start-up, as the system will assume it's faulty and refuse to boot. That said, I'd sooner it did that than boot with a duff fan and fry my Athlon to a crisp. Also, there is the slightly more common ability to power off your system when CPU temperature reaches a user set limit. The board will sound five warning beeps then shut down if this happens hopefully saving your CPU from permanent damage and giving you chance to investigate the problem. Both of these functions can be disabled if you prefer.

Five PCI, one CNR and one AGPx4 slot provide the expansion options for the AK75, and though I'm not a fan of the CNR slot, it is often used by system builders to keep costs down, and as such it's a feature we'll see cropping up regularly on most boards. It does offer the option to upgrade the onboard sound to a full 5.1 capable system with the purchase of a separate add in card too, so it has its uses.

By using five rather than the increasingly popular choice of six PCI slots, DFI have managed to avoid the problem of having your graphics card foul the memory retaining lugs, so while you lose a slot, you gain the convenience of being able to add or remove memory without having to unbolt your graphics card every time.

 

 

page3 Features continued>>>

 

Home