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#750 - ECS KA3 MVP Motherboard |
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Written by Zach Jeffers
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Saturday, 04 November 2006 |
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Page 8 of 10
Testing:
For testing of the ECS KA3 MVP motherboard, we used the following equipment:
Case: Ultra Aluminus
PSU: Ultra X-Connect2 550watt
Motherboard:ECS KA3 MVP
Processor: AMD 3800+ X2 AM2
Memory: Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 2 GB (2 x 1 GB)
Video Card: Albatron 6600 256mb
Hard Drive: Seagate 7200.10 320 GB SATA2
Optical: Plextor PX-740UF PATA
Bios:
During boot you are first greeted with a full screen EXTREME BIOS wallpaper. This is pretty and all, but for us geeks, we need to see the details! You will need to tap the Delete button until you are rewarded with a BIOS screen. The only reason I am mentioning the usually common delete key to enter BIOS is because there is a quirk that I have found. When you get to the initial POST screen, you press the Delete key and you are told that you will be entering Setup… but it proceeds to the SATA POST screen and if you do not tap the Delete key again, your system will continue to boot as normal. It is a bit irritating, but nothing too big.
The BIOS is packed full of features and you can tweak settings to your heart’s content. The BIOS that was written for this Xpress 3200 chipset has enthusiast written all over it. Everything is there that you would expect. Even overclockers will find their bridge locking and voltage buffers available.
Crossfire:
One of the greatest features of the Xpress 3200 chipset is the ability to run Crossfire natively! In our test system, we were able to run dual x1600Pro's in Crossfire without the need for a cross over cable out side the case. You simply plug in the monitor send to the second PCIE x16 video card's primary VGA output, then enable the CrossFire setting in your Catalyst Control Center! One thing to note was that we had to change back out monitor cable back to the first PCIE x16 video card between boots until the Catalyst drivers were configured correctly.
Overclocking:
As for overclocking the KA3 MVP, it was a snap. I did find that the north bridge does become slightly hot with a mild overclock. It would be recommended to seek an aftermarket cooling solution if overclocking is in this motherboards future. During testing, overclocking was minimized by locked multipliers of our retail 3800+ X2. Also when playing with memory timings, the BIOS did not seem to like pushing the envelope too far, even with voltage increases. If you were to pair this board up with an unlocked FX processor, you might be able to gain a decent overclock, but only look for mild gains when using locked X2 processors.
Windows:
Upon a Windows XP Pro SP2 installation, you will need to install the LAN drivers to be able to gain access to the Internet. Other items that were not recognized were the built on audio and PCI Bridge. These were easily updated with the included Drivers Disc. One note is that if you are going to be utilizing the Crossfire Xpress bus, you will want to make sure you download the newest Xpress 3200 drivers.
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Motherboards 
