by Anna Filatova
01/10/2001 | 04:47 AM
According to a press-release we saw at AMDZone today, Gigabyte launched a new DIY product, GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1), a new mainboard based on the VIA KT133A chipset. It is able to support the newer AMD Athlon and AMD Duron processors with 266MHz FSB as well as those with 200MHz FSB. GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1) also uses the VIA 686B South Bridge and an integrated Promise ATA/100 RAID controller. GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1) includes altogether 4 IDE ports which allows 8 ATA/100 HD to be connected and supports RAID 0 (Striping) and RAID 1 (Mirroring). In terms of expandability, GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1) adopts the ATX form factor. It comes with 3 DIMM slots supporting up to a 1.5GB PC133 SDRAM. It also comes with a standard AGP slot; 6 PCI Slots, 1 AMR. Other than the back end 2 USB ports, you can also add on another 2 USB connectors at the front. GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1) incorporates the Creative CT5880 PCI and provides 4-channel audio output. Together with the AC97 digital decoder, it provides you with an effective audio surround effect.
As for overclocking, GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1) has built-in voltage and FSB tweaking. The mainboard allows changing the FSB frequency between 95-150MHz settings. The clock multiplier range is from 5x to 12.5x at 0.5x intervals. Voltage range is from 1.5V to 1.85V at 0.25V intervals. AGP voltage is also adjustable from 1.5V to 1.7V range. For the DIMMs, you can tweak between 3.3V - 3.5V.
GA-7ZXR (Rev.2.1) supports Suspend-to-RAM (STR), 3 x 3 pin fan connectors; CMOS jumper; modem wakeup, LAN wakeup etc. It goes together with Gigabyte Dual BIOS; EasyTuneIII and @BIOS softwares in the package.
Although this mainboard is called just like its predecessor, 7ZXR, and has more or less similar features, it uses a different PCB and is based on a different chipset (KT133A instead of the KT133).