ASUS K7V-RM KX133 Slot-A microATX

The Bad

You can pretty much guess what the biggest downside to this motherboard is, expansion. Naturally because of its microATX form factor, the expansion opportunities are limited on the K7V-RM. With only 3 PCI slots, most users would find a hard time using the K7V-RM in their systems, in spite of the stable nature of the motherboard.

The integrated sound is always a disappointment for most hardware enthusiasts, luckily it can be disabled but unfortunately if you want to use your own sound card you'll be taking up one of the three available PCI slots leaving a meager 2 more for expansion. But this gets back to the initial problem most users will have with the motherboard.

The K7V-RM makes use of what AWARD calls the Medallion BIOS Setup which is nothing more than the old Phoenix BIOS Setup that AWARD acquired when they took over Phoenix BIOS. In spite of this scary fact (the Phoenix BIOS setup has never been our favorite), the setup does allow for all of the options that we'd normally find in an AWARD setup so we can't really complain.

The only other potential compliant here is that if the K7V-RM (and the K7V) take the route of the K7M, we won't see much support/acknowledgment from ASUS for these two boards until much after they hit the streets in April 2000. It'll be very disappointing if ASUS makes the K7V-RM and the K7V another K7M situation, let's hope they don't.

USB Compatibility

• Number of Front Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• Number of Rear Universal Serial Bus Root Ports: 2

• USB IRQ Enable/Disable in BIOS: Yes

• USB Keyboard Support in BIOS: Yes

Recommended SDRAM

Recommended SDRAM: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

SDRAM Tested: 1 x 128MB Corsair PC133 SDRAM; 1 x 128MB Mushkin PC133 SDRAM

Manufacturer: Corsair
Purchase Website: http://www.corsairmicro.com

Manufacturer: Mushkin
Purchase Website: http://www.mushkin.com