Tyan Trinity KTa SocketA
Motherboard
The FIC
AD11 posted the best numbers ever to come out of our SocketA testing.
Now to give credit where it is due a lot of that was the result of its DDR
memory. Now that we have established that we have to also mention that at
this point DDR is still expensive and nowhere near inexpensive like PC133
memory. Good 'ol SDRAM still has a lot of future, especially since you can
purchase a stick of PC133 for quite a bit less than $100. When I tested the
AOpen
AK73 I had hoped that there was a big jump to accompany AMD's recent move
to a 266 MHz FSB Athlon. Well, the AK73 could not post at 266 and I was stuck
at 900 MHz with the 1.2 GHz CPU that AMD sent. Enter Tyan and the Trinity
KTa motherboard. Tyan has produced some very impressive motherboards in the
past so let's see what the KTa has up its sleeve.
|
Features |
The
Board |
- Socket A AMD
CPU support
- PC133 support
- Apollo KT133A
chipset
- ATA-100 Support
- 1 AGP, 6 PCI,
1 ISA
- 3 SDRAM slots
- 8.2" x 12"
|
|
First
Impressions
When I pulled the board
out of its box I was very impressed by its small size. Tyan has put together
one of the cleanest PCB layouts I've seen in regards to SocketA CPUs. The
CPU socket is high on the board with the ATX power connector on the edge of
the board right above it. One thing that really bothered me with the FIC AD11
board was that its power connector was located near the center of the board.
That makes for a very long ATX cable if you are using a full tower case. There
is a temperature thermister built into the CPU socket center for monitoring
CPU temperature (more on that later).
Two more things immediately
stood out about the KTa on my first inspection. First was that Tyan has chosen
to include an ISA slot instead of the CNR slots most other manufacturers are
using. This makes great sense. While those of you who have read my other reviews
are familiar with my aversion to ISA as a whole I'd much rather see this slot
instead of the CNR/AMR slot that is typically found on newer boards. Go to
whatever store you buy your comuter stuff at and let me know if you come across
a CNR/AMR component. They just aren't available. So, I'd rather see the dinosoar
ISA slot instead of a slot that will be totally useless. We've been seeing
CNR/AMR slots for about a year now and my personal feeling is that we are
more likely to see built-in ethernet and modems before we'll ever see CNR/AMR
components widely available. Move onto the next page to see what else I found
out about this board.
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