SUMMARY: The new breed of Athlon board has been making it's way into the marketplace. Based on the VIA KT400 chipset, there has been a lot of talk about some of the future possibilities in the Athlon line. Come join Cameron "Sov" Johnson as he takes a look at the Gigabyte GA-7VAXP Motherboard. It uses this very chipset and we need to find out if it will make a worthy addition to our own systems.
Gigabyte has been in the business of making motherboards for quite some time now; since 1986 to be exact. They weren’t really a name that was held in high regard by Power Users, but with the AMD Thunderbird striking with such force, they have risen to the challenge and mass-produced several different varieties of motherboards for it. But we Overclocking Enthusiasts are a mighty tough breed to make happy.
Gigabyte has been with AMD Athlon from the start, even using AMD’s 750 chipset for their Slot A boards. KX133, KT133, KT133A, KT266, KT266A have all been on Gigabyte’s lists, but one thing has always been lacking; overclocking. Gigabyte tends to stick with the business and workstation market as they have often stated that’s where their biggest sales are. With the market moving towards overclockers, so has Gigabyte with their latest Socket A range.
Recently we took a look at the Gigabyte GA-7VRXP motherboard based on the KT333 chipset. To us this board was a masterpiece, while some others had some problems with settings that were available on some boards but not on others. Today with VIA introducing the KT400 chipset for AMD Athlon processors, Gigabyte has already jumped into the deep end with their latest addition to their products range.
