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Albatron KX400+ Pro Motherboard (KT333CE)
Author : Wayne Date : 9th December 2002
...Product KX400+ Pro
...Manufacturer Albatron
...Supplier The Overclocking Store
...Price £62.99 +VAT

 

 

 

Introduction :

With so many motherboards on the market what does it really take to pinpoint a compelling purchase? Well, that's a question to which you'll get lots of different answers depending on who you ask. In all honesty it's a long time since we saw what could be classed as a "bad" motherboard and generally we've found that performance even between the most expensive top of the range boards and the bargain basement boards from relative unknowns is still within a percentage difference that's only likely to matter to the most picky of users.

Unlike chipsets of old, the design and compatibility of modern parts makes for a fairly level performance plateau that makes choosing the right option both easier and harder. Easier because you can be fairly sure you're not buying a product that runs 20% behind the best available and harder because you suddenly have to factor in things like price, layout, quality, warranty, features and support.

Albatron are no doubt one of the aforementioned "relative unknowns" to some of you despite being involved in the production of wide-screen multimedia monitors, rear projection systems, TVs, and plasma displays since 1984. Albatron as a maker of computer related hardware only appeared on the scene this year (2002) and without a doubt the single product that gave them their moment in the spotlight was their Ti4200P Turbo, a GeForce4 Ti4200 built on an 8 layer PCB with 3.3ns memory that performed at Ti4600 levels but without the associated cost.

The last motherboard we looked at from Albatron was their KX400-8X. This KT400 board was a good performer but really lacked some of the power options needed to make it a must have, though as we stated in the review part of this is down to the enigmatic nature of the KT400 chipset itself and can't all be laid at Albatron's door.

Today I'm looking at the Albatron KX400+ Pro, a KT333 (rev CE) motherboard that brings onboard the 8235 South Bridge and therefor adds USB 2.0 and ATA-133 to the mix. Let's do the specs then we can move on.

Model: KX400+Pro (VIA KT333/8235)
Feature:
  1. AMD Athlon™/Athlon™XP/Duron™ Processor
  2. Socket 462 with FSB 200/266MHz
  3. 3 DDR333/266/200 Memory Sockets
  4. 6 channel AC 97 Audio
  5. 2 ATA133 Channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE Devices
  6. 6 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (4 ports by optional cable)
  7. Mirror BIOS™
  8. Voice Genie™
Processor
 Socket 462 AMD Athlon™/Athlon™XP/Duron™ Processor 500 MHz to 2800+
FSB
 200/266MHz
Chipset
  1. VIA KT333/8235
  2. Winbond W83697HF
Memory
  1. 3 DDR sockets
  2. DDR333/266/DDR200 unbuffered ECC/none-ECC DDR SDRAM up to 3GB
Expansion Slots
  1. 1 x AGP 4X slot (Supports AGP 1X/2X/4X)
  2. 6 x PCI slots (PCI 2.2 compliant)
  3. 1 x CNR slot (AMR Type)
IDE Ports
 2 ATA133 channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE devices
Onboard I/O Connectors
  1. 1 x Floppy Connector
  2. 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 header (4 ports USB cable optional)
  3. 1 x CD_IN header
  4. 1 x S/PDIF in/out header (S/PDIF in/out cable optional)
  5. 1 x CPU fan header with fan rotation detection function
  6. 1 x System fan headers with fan rotation detection function
  7. 1 x10 pin system panel header (Intel spec)
  8. 1 x Front audio header (Intel spec)
  9. 1 x IrDA header
  10. 1 x Chassis intrusion detection header
  11. 1 x Wake on LAN
I/O via Back Panel
 PS/2 keyboard/mouse, 2 x USB(2.0/1.1),2 x Com(serial), 1 x Parallel, 1x Game/Line-in/Lin-out/Mic-in
Power
20-pin ATX power connector
BIOS Features
  1. 2Mb Flash EEPROM
  2. Award BIOS with ACPI, DMI2.0, PnP, WfM2.0, Green
  3. Suspend to RAM (S3), Suspend to Disk (S4)
  4. Wake on keyboard, Wake on LAN/RTC Timer
Hardware Monitoring
 2 FAN sensors, CPU/System voltages and temperature monitoring
Special Features
  1. Mirror BIOS™ Protect BIOS by creating a mirror image of itself
  2. Voice Genie™ Voice Troubleshooting system (4 languages)
  3. Zero Jumper Design
  4. Adjustable CPU frequency by 1 MHz increment, Adjustable Vcore, VMemory
    Watch Dog Timer (Automatic reset the system when system lack up)
Driver
 Chipset/Audio Driver
Certifications
 FCC, CE, C-Tick, BSMI, WHQL
Form Factor
 ATX (244mm x 305mm)

 

 

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