Board Layout:

The K8V-X board layout is generally the same as its K8V-SE Deluxe counterpart, but we will briefly reiterate the layout for those who haven’t followed up on our K8V-SE Deluxe evaluation. The socket area is quite refined on the board. Asus has implemented a passive heatsink on the chipset for thermal dissipation, and considering that most Athlon 64 KT800 chipset based boards aren’t overclocking friendly, it makes sense to save on the production costs and forwarding the savings onto the users. Even the boards that have managed to sustain somewhat of an average overclock, they aren’t limited due to the chipset’s thermal offerings. Right adjacent to the socket is a row of capacitors. Unfortunately, when Asus ported over the board layout from K8V-SE Deluxe and K8V boards, they also ported the negativities of the layout. The problem with having six capacitors right next to the socket is that they might cause larger heatsinks, likes the ones from Zalman and Thermalright, to interfere, thereby, sourcing incompatibilities. The 4-pin, 12v connector is located around the top corner of the board, which is an ideal place. This way you will not have to work with the cable too much in order to get it on the board. Other than what we stated, the area is fairly clean towards the top.

Right next to the socket, you will find three memory slots that support up to 3GB of PC3200, PC2700, and PC2100 memory. Followed by the DIMM slots is a 20-pin power connector in between the three slots and two IDE connectors that are supported via VIA’s 8237 southbridge. The only issue we have with the power connector is Asus?reasoning behind this particular location. It’s quite odd to have a power connector at this location. Although the position doesn’t interrupt user-friendliness, it would’ve been better if Asus stacked the IDE connectors (one underneath the other) and moved the power connector towards the top right corner of the board. This way both the 4-pin, 12v connector as well as the 20-pin power connector would’ve been in an ideal scenario. It would’ve also kept the wires roaming on the top of the board. Thus far, the layout is fairly clean with the only exception being the row of capacitors that is next to the socket. The top half of the board is otherwise hassle-free and idealistic.

As you move down the board, you will encounter a floppy connector, thanks to VIA’s 8237 native support, that is rotated 90 degrees to better deal with cabling issues in larger desktop cases, namely the Stacker from Cooler Master and the Shark from Thermaltake. The idea of rotating the connectors is rather appealing, and it would’ve been better if this were the case with the primary and secondary IDE connectors at the top. We are unsure why Asus did not went for this opportunity, as it shouldn’t have had a hit on production costs. Nonetheless, the ideology behind rotated connectors is actually wishful on our part.

Right underneath the floppy connector are the two SATA ports for latest in hard drive technology also maintained via VIA’s 8237 southbridge. The 8237 southbridge supports two IDE and SATA drives with RAID 0 and 1 capabilities. As you can see, the PCB tracings of a third-party disk controller, an IDE connector and two SATA ports towards the far end of the board are present on the board. Since Asus designed the board more for the value buyer, they decided to cut the cost of the board by offering fewer features compared to the K8V-SE Deluxe board. From what we recently examined with the K8V-SE Deluxe, the choice of a third-party controller would most likely be Promise with support for two additional IDE and SATA channels and RAID 0, 1 and 0+1.

Additionally, a 3-pin fan connector, a green LED power light and the necessary row of color-coded connectors are also present on the bottom end of the board. The blue, CMOS jumper is also situated in an unsaturated location, which is admirable.

As you move towards the left side of the board, you will encounter five PCI slots with an AGP 8x slot to the far left end. If you look at the right side of the board, you will notice PCB tracings of another connector. The missing connector is mainly for Asus?onboard Wi-Fi support. Basically, if you purchase a high-end board from Asus with this capability, you can separately purchase an Asus branded networking card, which will then get connected to the onboard Wi-Fi connector and transmit signals throughout your home network. You can think of this feature as Wi-Fi onboard. Although the feature appears to be exciting, it is, in fact, not as practical realistically. The first point of concern is that you will have to purchase the networking card separately. It does not come included with even the most high-end boards from Asus. The second issue is that the Wi-Fi networking card is only sub-par in performance, according to our internal lab tests. Therefore, we recommend anyone who is looking to setup a Wi-Fi home networking option to opt for name brand networking companies such as Linksys, Netgear or D-Link. The innovation is there, but the practicality is not.

There is an adequate amount space between the AGP slot and the DIMM slots; therefore, you should have no issues switching out the modules without obstructing the graphics adapter. We are seeing more and more manufacturers refining the board layout with every generation. It’s great to see manufacturers listening to the community and making changes accordingly.

The back panel contains 1x serial port, 4x USB 2.0 ports, 1x parallel port, 1x RJ45 port, 1x PS/2 keyboard connector, 1x PS/2 mouse connector, 1x audio I/O, and 1x SPDIF OUT port. The Gigabit LAN functionality is powered by Marvell 88E 8001 controller while the audio ports are powered by ADI AD1980, 6-channel codec with SPDIF out. Although the board initially supports eight USB 2.0 ports, only four of them are implemented at the back panel I/O connectors. Since the K8V-X is more of an economic offering from Asus, they did not include a separate bracket with four additional USB 2.0 ports. Therefore, the initial support for eight USB 2.0 ports (VIA 8237) is left unused. According to the board maker, you can purchase the 4-port USB bracket from them separately, which will add to the overall cost.