EPoX 7KXA KX133 Slot-A ATX

The Test

In recent times, choosing a motherboard cannot be completely determined by a Winstone score. Now, many boards come within one Winstone point of each other and therefore the need to benchmark boards against each other falls. Therefore you shouldn't base your decision entirely on the benchmarks you see here, but also on the technical features and advantages of this particular board, seeing as that will probably make the greatest difference in your overall experience.

Click Here to learn about AnandTech's Motherboard Testing Methodology.

As the first KX133 board to hit the market, the EPoX will definitely sell quite a few 7KXAs based on that fact alone. The 7KXA will probably end up being the definition of what an average KX133 motherboard will be defined as in the upcoming months. Its overclocking features put the 7KXA up on the levels of the K7M and MSI's newly released K7Pro in terms of overclocking desire, but the board still lacks the added features that would truly separate it from the rest of the pack.

Overall, the 7KXA is a perfectly fine KX133 based solution. It will be one of the first available (if not the first available) in most areas and it combines EPoX's usual quality and reliability with the feature set provided by VIA's KX133 chipset. For those of you that need a KX133 board now, the 7KXA is obviously a better solution than nothing.

But for those of you that can wait, DDR Athlon chipsets are reportedly just a few months away and if you can't wait that long, it'll be about a month until you start seeing more KX133 based boards appear from companies like ASUS and Tyan among others.