Athlon Motherboard Roundup - March 2000

ASUS K7V-RM

ASUS K7V-RM Review

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The successor to the K7M-RM, the K7V-RM is a microATX board based on VIA’s KX133 chipset.

Unlike the previous Athlon boards from ASUS, the K7V-RM is being publicized from the start as an ASUS product, which is definitely a step in the right direction for ASUS.  The boards will ship in official ASUS packaging and not the white OEM boxes that the K7M began shipping in when ASUS was in their denial phase. 

The board itself is the most stable KX133 based board out of the group and is one of the first boards to be certified for 1GHz operation by AMD.  It also features the overclocked FSB settings from the K7M that we appreciated so much, as well as adjustable voltage settings from within the BIOS setup.

The major downside to the K7V-RM is its microATX form factor that provides enough room for 1 AGP slot and 3 PCI slots.  Luckily, ASUS’ K7V comes to the rescue here as it is essentially the K7V-RM but in a full ATX form factor.  While we have yet to test the K7V, we can expect it to perform identically to the K7V-RM in all aspects.