Epox have earned themselves an amazing reputation in a relatively short time. They went pretty much from zero to every serious overclocker's favourite in the space of just 3 boards. Their last attempt, the KT266a-based 8KHA series was their best yet, with some sites obtaining literally insane FSB performance out of it. The 8K3A+ is very much an evolution of that board rather than a revolution, but has some important new features virtue of the updated KT333 chipset, and the fact that Epox have had the opportunity to improve on their old board. First up, and arguably the only significant change of the new KT333 is its ability to run the memory bus asynchronously from the FSB. What this means is that if you have high quality PC2700 memory then you can run it at 166MHz whilst keeping the FSB at AMDs recommended level of 133MHz.
Another new feature of the 8k3a+ over its illustrious predecessor is the inclusion of ATA133 support for new (Maxtor) hard disks. While the benefit this technology brings to burst benchmarks is obvious, its actual benefit to real world applications is dubious. Nonetheless, better to have it than not! As well as ATA133 primary IDE channels, the Highpoint HPT372 on-board RAID controller also supports the new standard. Sadly that’s pretty much all that’s new over the 8KHA+, and although they didn't have much to improve on, I can't help but think that USB 2.0 would have been a good inclusion. That may however have impeded overclockability, with some reviews claiming that the Soyo KT333 Dragon hits a wall at below 160MHz FSB due to the USB2.0 controller. Interesting features carried over from previous boards is AC97 audio, and a POST Debug 7-segment LED on-board display - more on these features later.
What you get
Epox boards come in rather original pastel-tone boxes which differ from the normal cardboard affairs thanks to the fact that they are sheathed in corrugated plastic, and come with a handy little carry handle.
Inside the box you get:
- The board itself (no sh*t you all say)
- Driver CDs
- 3 Instruction booklets (quick-start, comprehensive, highpoint RAID)
- two ATA133 cables
- a floppy cable
- A USB bracket
The Epox 8K3A+ is currently priced at a very cheap £98.70 ($137) from Chillblast.com, who sell to both US and UK customers or at $109 at
AccessMicro in the US. That is some £60 ($84) less than high-end solutions from Abit and Soyo, although you do pay the price in terms of the on-board goodies available. To be fair, most Epox buyers don't really care about anything other than one little detail - FSB and performance. Let's take a look at all-important layout.
