The Features

- Expansion Layout

Layout wise, the K7VZA is pretty typical of an OEM board - 1 AGP, 5PCI and 1 AMR slot populate this board, why the AMR slot was placed above the AGP slot is a total mystery to me. The boards memory layout incorporates 3 DIMM slots for PC100/PC133 SDRAM or VCM SDRAM modules for upto a maximum of 1.5GB of memory (512MB x 3).

- Chipsets

Powering the board is the new VIA VT8363A (KT133) Nortbridge chipset. Most of you out there know what features the KT133A supports but for the new guys out there here is the big rap-up of the KT133A... AGP4x support, PC100/PC133 memory support, 200/266MHz FSB support, 5 PCI Master slots. Accompanied by the 686B chipset this board comes with support for 4 USB ports (additional bracket for 2 extra USB is not supplied) ATA-100 IDE support and AC'97 audio Codec.

- Socket A Area

The Socket A layout of the K7VZA is one that I haven't seen on many OEM boards. The Socket is placed on its side, this allows for very large heatsinks like the Alpha PEP66 cooler to be used without any obstructions, this is a trait normal of a super overclocker motherboards.

- Overclocking

The ECS K7VZA is rather lacking when it comes to the overclocking side of things. No CPU multiplier adjustments, no Vcore or VIO adjustments. The only overclocking feature is the ability to change the FSB and even that was limited. In settings we weren't able to get the ESC to go past 133MHz FSB (266 DDR).