Introduction

The latest motherboard based on the VIA KT333 chipset is in town. Gigabyte introduced the GA-7VRXP motherboard for the AMD Socket-A platform just recently. Although the VIA KT333 chipset was plagued by some problems in initial motherboard samples, they have since fixed them with a newer chipset revision.

The VIA KT333 chipset.

The new VIA KT333 is made to support new DDR333 memory modules. Combined with the new VT8233A south bridge, the KT333 chipset also support the new ATA133 IDE interface. There are not much changes to the architecture of the core logic except for these two major technological advancements. AGP 8X is still quite far away and USB 2.0 is nowhere to be found. Unlike the SiS735/745 chipset which uses the MuTIOL North/South bridge link that SiS claims to provide I/O transfer throughput of up to 1.2GB/s, the KT333 is still using the much outdated V-Link which has a bandwidth of 266MB/s - a lot less than what the SiS MuTIOL is offering right now.

The VT8233A south bridge. Supports the new ATA133 IDE transfer mode.

The new Gigabyte GA-7VRXP is based on the KT333 chipset with the new VT8233A(CE) south bridge. The CE version is based on the newer revision of the south bridge which had several bugs fixed. It may be confusing to certain users as some motherboard manufacturers had KT333CE as part of the motherboard's chipset specifications. However, you should note that they are the same as KT333, it is just an indication of the new CE revision of the south bridge.

The board comes with a printed manual, a quick installation guide, three ATA133 cables, one floppy drive cable, an I/O faceplate, a four port USB 2.0 bracket and a two port USB 1.1 bracket.

Before we look at the motherboard up close, here's the technical specification :-