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Date |
: Jan 22nd, 2002 |
| Category |
: Motherboards |
| Manufacturer |
: DFI |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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The AMD761 North Bridge, the core of the AMD760 chipset, sits between the CPU socket and the AGP slot, roughly an inch from each. It provides all the major features of the chipset, namely DDR, 100/133MHz FSB as well as AGP 2x/4x support. While this chipset is now bowing out of the market (being replaced by both the nForce and KT266A), nevertheless, it is still a solid part providing excellent performance. DFI chose to implement an active chipset cooling solution. It looks generic, but it gets the job done.
The motherboard sports 2 DIMM slots, capable of accommodating up to 2GB of DDR-SDRAM. In reality however, the currently largest available DDR DIMMs are only 512MB in size, thus effectively limiting main system memory to 1GB.
Earlier, we classified the AK-76SN as an AMD760-based board. More accurately, we should have said AMD761-based. Due to the AMD761 North Bridge being linked to the AMD766 South Bridge via the PCI bus, all manufacturers (including DFI) opted to use the VIA 686B South Bridge due to its lower price. While many would consider this practice to be taboo, there are only 2 incompatibilities as identified by AMD; the inability to support the South Bridge's IOAPIC; potential data corruption when switching into the ACPI S3 power management state (Suspend to RAM) in systems that use registered DDR DIMMs. The first is easily alleviated by adding a pull-up resistor, but there is no solution for the second. For expansion slots, DFI adopts a more power-user oriented 1/6/0/0 (AGP/PCI/ISA/AMR) configuration. As mentioned earlier, all the slots are capable of accommodating full-length cards.
DFI chose to endow the AK76-SN with a lower number of capacitors, but with each capacitor being a large 3300uF unit. All good and well, as the CPU should receive sufficient and steady power. In the overclocking department, the AK76-SN features a jumper for FSB range selection (ie. either 100-132MHz, or >= 133MHz), adjustable in 1MHz increments via the BIOS. The FSB clock generator used is capable being ramped up to 166MHz. CPU core voltage (from 1.475V to 1.85V) and multiplier selection are done via DIP switches. However, VIO and DIMM voltage adjustments are absent.
Surprisingly, DFI bucks the current trend by forgoing some form of integrated audio. Power users might welcome this, since they usually go after higher-end hardware-base audio solutions (eg. the SBLive!). Moreover, the exclusion of audio functionality helps to lower the cost of the board by taking up less silicon real estate.
The garnishings of this bundle are minimal, with DFI including a product manual, driver CD, quick reference sheet, floppy and 80-pin IDE cables, just the required essentials for more seasoned end-users to get started.
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