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Performance

I used to compare performance with rather popular Epox 8K3A board.

The following equipment was used in tested system:
· CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1600+;
· Videocard: MX440 on nVidia GeForce4 chip 64Mb (Detonator v. 28.32);
· Sound card: Creative Live 5.1;
· HDD: IBM DTLA 307030 30 Gb;
· RAM: 256 Mb, Samsung PC2100 DDR SDRAM;
· Power supply: PowerMan 250W;
· OS: Windows 2000 English SP1.

In the beginning let us look at synthetic tests, which show theoretical performance.

Here are results of office application tests.

And finally gaming tests.

It looks strange but in many test the board loses Epox (and therefore loses Gigabyte 7VRX). It seems like the link of KT333 with a new VT8235 south bridge does not work with V-Link 2.0 but uses old version of the bus with 266Mb/s bandwidth.

Conclusions

I will start from the price. The board cost me ~US$120 (the end of August) and it seemed to be relatively expensive. However, if we take into account its rich set of accessories, which includes many interesting capabilities and new VT8235 south bridge, this board can find its customer. We can only hope that this board becomes cheaper when other KT400-based boards appear on sale.
The board itself is a rather qualitative product, which can meet needs of both beginners and sophisticated users. However I can't recommend this board for serious overclockers (for those who treat FSB clock of 166MHz as a minimal one).

Besides that, an Apogee board is an ideal gift. Even if an owner changes this board in the future, he will keep a panel with USB ports, headphones and stylish round cables.

Summary

Pros:
· Excellent appearance;
· Good stability;
· Rich set of accessories (round cables J);
· USB 2.0 support.

Cons:
· Weak overclocking results;
· Unstable work on 166MHz clock;
· High price.

• Page1 - Specifications
• Page2 - Box Contents
• Page3 - Layout
• Page4 - Overclocking and Stability
• Page5 - Performance and Conclusions

This product was purchased in retail sail. That is why this review is maximally objective. Besides, I am absolutely independent on anyone in making my conclusions.