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IWill KK266plus-R Motherboard


Date
: 10/1/01 – 02:06:16 AM

Author
:

Category
: Motherboard

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer: IWill
Price: $159.00 @ OCH

Thanks to IWill for supplying us with this topnotch KT133A motherboard!

Introduction

As a true O visitor, you’ll probably know that this is a first IWill review in a long time here at Overclockers Online. Which IWill board will we look at today? Well, we present you the KK266plus-R. It’s a VIA KT133A-based board with a lot of cool features that will make your life much more fun. Now, there’s only one problem and I can see you thinking the same as me … For God’s sake man, this ain’t even a DDR mainboard! I know DDR memory and DDR-supporting boards are very cheap these days, but I also know that a lot of people still have giant heaps of SDRAM which they don’t want to just throw away. I bet you can agree with me on this one. That’s why we feel the need to keep reviewing all the KT133A board we manage to get our hands on.

During the past year, IWill has evolved from a small company with low budget hardware to a much bigger one with some pretty high performance hardware at really competitive prices. Let’s just think about the BD133 low budget Socket370 board, the KD266 ALi chipset-based SocketA board, the DVD266 Dual Socket370 SMP board and so on … seriously, they have some sweet products and they don’t forget to implement tweaking capabilities and overclocking options in their BIOSes.

As I mentioned before, we are about the have a look at the KK266plus-R. Note that this board still is IWill’s SocketA flagship! That’s right, IWill still doesn’t have a nice AMD760 DDR board like the KG7 from Abit or the K7A from EPoX. The KK266plus-R is actually a new revision of the older and well-known KK266R. I’ll explain the small differences between the old and the new in just a few moments.

And before we show you how this board performs in real life situations, I want to tell you what you get for $159! I’d say … On to the specifications!

Page 2 : Specifications

Specifications

To save you guys some efforts, I did a copy/paste of the KK266plus-R specifications as they can be found on the IWill website :

CPU

Supports Socket A for AMD Athlon and Duron processors
Supports AMD Athlon processors from 700 MHz to 1.6 GHz and higher
Supports AMD Duron processors from 600 MHz to 950 MHz and higher
3-Phase Power Solution
Provides 46A power for future higher frequency AMD Athlon processors

Chipset

VIA Apollo KT133A chipset (North Bridge Controller)
VIA VT82C686B chipset (South Bridge)
AMI MG80649 ATA/100 IDE RAID chipset
C-Media CMI8378 MX sound chipset (6 channel with SPDIF)

Bus Frequency

Supports DDR266/200 MHz FSB
MicroStepping Iwill CPU Frequency Setting
Bye-Bye Jumper IWILL Smart Setting (Software CPU Frequency Setting)

System Memory

3 x 168-pin DIMM Sockets Support up to 1.5 GB of PC133 Memory
Supports PC133/PC100 SDRAM and VCM Memory Types
Supports 64/128/256/512 MB SDRAM Modules
Supports 3.3V Unbuffered/Registered DIMM

On Board IDE RAID

AMI ATA/100 IDE RAID Controller
Dual ATA/100 IDE Channels
RAID 0, 1, 0+1 Functions

On Board IDE

Dual ATA 100/66/33 IDE Channels
Supports ATAPI IDE CD-ROM, ZIP-100 & LS-120

Audio

Support 6 channel speakers (5.1 configuration)
32-voice HRTF-base 3D positional audio
Supports Microsoft DirectSound 3D and Aureal A3D
Supports EAX sound effects (Environment Audio eXtension)
Supports SPDIF via IWILL SuperAudio (optional)

I/O Interface

1 x FDD (Floppy Port)
4 x ATA/100 IDE Ports
1 x PS/2 Keyboard (supports auto swapping)
1 x PS/2 Mouse (supports auto swapping)
1 x Parallel Port
2 x Serial Ports
4 x USB Ports (2 x optional)
3 x Audio Ports (Line-IN/Line-OUT/MIC)
1 x Game/MIDI Port
1 x Chassis Intrusion Header
1 x Internal IR Header
1 x SMBus Header

Expansion Slots

1 x AGP Slot (AGP 4X/2X Mode; 32-bit/66 MHz AGP Protocol)
6 x PCI 2.2 Bus Master Slots
1 x ISA Slot

BIOS

2 Mb EEPROM with Flash Protection
‘Bye-Bye Jumper’ Iwill Smart Setting
PC99 Compliant
Supports Plug and Play (PnP)
Supports ACPI 1.0
Supports APM 1.2
Supports DMI 2.1

Power Management

RTC Alarm
Wake ON LAN (WOL)
Wake ON Modem (WOM)
Windows 2000/98/95 Power Off

Board Size

ATX Form Factor – 12 in x 9.5 in (305 mm x 240 mm)

Special Utilities

Acrobat Reader
Audio Rack Sound Utility
Auto Run Iwill Power Installer CD with Tools and Manual
Hardware Monitoring Utility
Trend-Micro Full-function PC-Cillin Anti-Virus Program
AMI IDE RAID Easy Setup using simple configuration utilities

Package Contents

1 x Iwill KK266Plus-R motherboard
1 x User Manual
1 x Iwill Power Installer
2 x ATA/100 IDE cables
1 x Floppy cable

The Specs In Detail

The KK266plus comes in two slightly different flavors … We have the KK266plus without onboard RAID and the KK266plus-R with an onboard RAID solution from American Megatrends (NOT a Highpoint or Promise RAID controller). The AMI RAID controller features RAID 0, RAID 1 and a combination of both, RAID 0+1.

The heart of this IWill mobo is the well-known and good old VIA KT133A chipset (northbridge). By now, everyone should know that this chipset allows our KK266plus-R to support 200MHz (100MHz DDR) FSB speeds for the AMD Duron CPUs and the Athlon B CPUs as well as a 266MHz (133MHz DDR) FSB for the Athlon C CPUs. Also note that this board supports the new Duron CPUs with the ‘Morgan’ core and the future Athlon ‘Palomino’ CPUs. So I guess you’ll have plenty of options for future upgrades, don’t you think?

The KT133A chipset has a hard time keeping its head above water because DDR platforms are not only quite a bit faster, but they’re also priced equally to SDR platforms like this KT133A. What I mean is that if you buy a completely new system nowerdays, it would not be a good decision to NOT choose a DDR rig with an Abit KG7 and some Crucial DDR RAM for example. This setup will not cost you much more than the avarage non-DDR setup with the same specs. If you have the necessary $$$, you can choose to put 1.5GB of SDRAM in this mainboard. That’s the maximum amount of memory this baby can handle just like any other KT133A board. Our KK266plus-R will accept 512MB memory sticks in 3 memory slots (= 1.5GB).

The VIA 686B southbridge provides support for up to 4 UDMA66/100 drives. That’s not all! The KK266plus-R is also equiped with an AMI RAID controller which allows you to connect another 4 UDMA66/100 drives. This enables you to hook up no less than 8 IDE devices on this mainboard!

The KK266plus-R comes with a normal AGP 4x slot (not AGP Pro) to put in your favorite AGP video card. To plug in all your PCI expansion cards, IWill has chosen to equipe this KK266plus-R with 6 PCI slots and 1 legacy ISA slot. As you can see, there is no CNR slot because noone is using that anyway ;) I know powerusers and tweakers will love these 6 PCI slots!

One other really cool feature on this IWill board is the onboard sound solution. Normally I really don’t like this onboard sound crap, but in this case, I’m pleased to make an exception. Want to know why? Well, simply because this KK266plus-R has a C-Media CMI8738 chip with 6 channel hardware sound support onboard and is capable of supporting SPDIF via a little optional IWill SuperAudio card. This means you have 6 separte channels and 5.1 config support! The optional SuperAudio card can be used to connect digital equipment like MDs, CD players, etc. and transfer digital data fast and without major quality loss. It certainly looks like you get an expensive SB Live! for free if you buy this mainboard.

Just like on most KT133A boards, this KK266plus-R has some serious overclocking and tweaking potential. You can tweak and adjust about everything on this mobo. Everything can be set from within the BIOS except for the I/O voltage and the general FSB speed range. The I/O voltage or the voltage that goes to the memory slots has to be set by a jumper on the top right of the board. This voltage is set to 3.3v by default but can be increased by 5% or 10%. The best thing to do is to immediately set it to a 10% increase to insure board stability especially when you’re into overclocking. And then there is the FSB jumper. When this jumper is set to ‘FSB 100MHz’ (default setting), you can choose any FSB between 100MHz and 133MHz in the BIOS. If the jumper is set to ‘FSB 133MHz’, we can set the FSB from 133MHz all the way up to 166MHz. I know this jumper is kinda weird and totally unnecessary, but what do we do about it?

Let’s see what you can expect in the box …

Page 3 : In The Box

In The Box

What does the package need to contain after you opened it up? :

- Iwill KK266Plus-R motherboard
- Motherboard User Manual
- Iwill’s Power Installer CD
- 2 x UDMA100 IDE cable
- Floppy cable

Just like all the IWill boards we reviewed so far, the KK266plus-R mobo and the rest of the goodies are packed in a solid white plastic box. This is a very good thing for two reasons : one … it looks very sweet and two … it helps keeping the mobo alive during transportation.

It’s nice to see that IWill includes two UDMA100 IDE cables in this box. I know there are some other mainboard manufacturers who also have a RAID capable board, but only include one UDMA100 IDE cable. Note that the KK266plus (non-RAID version) only has one UDMA100 cable in the package. Of course, one floppy cable is also more than enough.

There isn’t much to say about the manual, is there? I know for a fact that it still isn’t comparable with a user manual of an Asus, AOpen or Abit board. But I don’t really judge the quality of a board by its user manual.

The Power Installer CD is superb, especially for unexperienced users. What does this CD do? Well, you just put the CD in your CDROM drive and the Power Installer will install the necessary drivers onto your hard drive! You don’t have to tell me that this CD doesn’t include the latest Via 4in1 drivers and so on, but at least the mobo and sound will work.

One last little piece of hardware you may find in the box is a small expansion card which contains 2 extra sound channels. You will only need this if you plan to use 5.1 sound.

Page 4 : Layout

The Layout

Do we need to repeat that the layout of a board is just as important as the quality of the board? Well, then I said it again! A good layout can result in a much cleaner system and can even make the difference between a stable rig and an unstable one. Why? Because of the airflow, folks! If you have a small ATX case (like my AOpen HQ45), you don’t have much room to put IDE cables and power cables in a way that airflow isn’t influenced. The layout of a mobo will make a difference in this case, believe me. And how about the room around the CPU socket? And can we change the memory without removing the AGP card? Let’s have a look …

First of all, there is plenty of room around the CPU socket to mount a big-ass oversized heatsink on your CPU. I know overclockers will love this. I know I do ;)

The ATX power connector on the board is situated at the lower left of the CPU socket. This means that you’ll have to bend the ATX power cable over the heatsink and fan of the CPU. This not only looks bad, but it also influences the airflow of your high speed fan resulting in a higher CPU temp.

IWill engineers have put all IDE connectors and the floppy drive connector on the top right of the board and right next to the memory slots. They are really packed together and I can imagine the mess if you use all 4 IDE connectors at the same time.

As I already mentioned in the previous paragraph, the memory slots can be found on the left side of the IDE connectors and to the right of the CPU socket. The only thing that bothers me here is the lack of space between the AGP videocard and the clips which hold the memory sticks into place. The first two memory sticks cannot be removed/installed without removing the AGP card first. We tried it with a Visiontek GeForce3 and Hercules Kyro2. This is a common problem on many boards on the market.

I also felt a bit sad when I saw the northbridge didn’t have active cooling. Even without overclocking the FSB to 133MHz+ speeds, the temperature of the northbridge without active cooling rizes up to 50C. Can you imagine the temp with FSB speeds of 150MHz? Remember that heat still is the overclocker’s worst enemy!

I’m still stunned by the fact that this board has 1 AGP slot, 6 PCI slots and 1 legacy ISA slot. This sounds like the perfect combination to me! On the right side of the second and thirth PCI slot, you can see the AMI onboard RAID controller. Right next to the controller is the jumper to turn the RAID controller on or off. It could also be interesting to know that this board has four 3-pin connector to plug in a case fan or CPU fan.

The backpanel of the board shows the usual stuff like PS2 and USB connectors, two serial ports, one parallel port and last but not least … the sound connectors.

To conclude the talk about the layout, I must admit that I’m not entirely pleased with the layout of this KK266plus-R motherboard. There are some good points, but at least an equal number of bad ones … I guess it’s better luck next time for IWill :)

Page 5 : BIOS

The BIOS

The IWill KK266plus-R motherboard has a highly tweakable Award BIOS. The basic elements of a BIOS are present but also many tweaks and overclocking options. This BIOS looks very similar to what we are used to have on an avarage KT133A board … The terminology may be different on this IWill mainboard, but the basic idea behind the words stays the same. Adjusting memory timings, CAS latency, changing the multiplier of the CPU, FSB speeds, CPU core voltage and so on. Remember that a good and complete BIOS is essential to get a good, stable and fast motherboard. It’s always a good idea to upgrade to the latest BIOS version of your motherboard even though it looks like there’s nothing wrong with the one you’re using at that time. A new BIOS revision can increase speed and stability dramatically!

Like I already mentioned earlier in this review, the only things overclockers will have to change by a jumper are the I/O voltage and the FSB range. The I/O voltage can be set to 3.3v +5% or +10%. The FSB range jumper has to be set to 100MHz to achieve FSB speeds between 100MHz and 133MHz and it needs to be switched to the 133MHz setting if you want to set a FSB speed higher than 132MHz and all the way up to 166MHz. All these FSB settings can be changed in 1MHz increments thanks to the so-called IWill MicroStepping technology.

We can adjust the CPU clock, the multiplier, CPU core voltage and the BIOS flash protection from within the CPU tab of the BIOS. The CPU core voltage must be selected from 28 settings between 1.125v – 1.85v in 0.025v increments. Too bad we cannot set the voltage higher than 1.85v :(

The most important memory tweaks on this board are the DRAM timing settings. Memory timings and CAS settings can be selected out of these 5 different options : Normal (6-3-3), Enhance (6-3-2), Fast (6-2-3), Faster (6-2-2), Fastest (5-2-2). Of course, the FASTEST setting will kick some butt ;)

You will have to experiment and find the optimal settings for your hardware because some hardware is limited in some ways …

Page 6 : Overclocking

Overclocking

By now, the IWill KK266 series of motherboards are very popular in the overclocking community. If you really want to get the last MHz out of your CPU and memory, you should set the FSB jumper on the board to 133MHz. But please note that this setting is only recommended for Athlon C CPUs running a 133MHz FSB by default, because for a brief moment after you press the power button of your case, an Athlon B CPU (running at 100MHz) will run at 133MHz and most of them are just not up to this! For example: An Athlon 1.3GHz running at 13 x 100MHz by default will never boot at 13 x 133MHz (= 1730MHz)! :(

To check out what our KK266plus-R was capable of, we decided to test it by using the fastest AMD CPU currently available (the Athlon 1.4GHz) and some fast OCZ Performance Max SDRAM (pretested stable @ 175MHz CAS3) to be sure the memory doesn’t act as a bottleneck.

After some serious experimenting, I found out that the KK266plus-R is capable of running my Athlon CPU and the memory @ 161MHz CAS3 and @ 153MHz CAS2. That’s quite an achievement, don’t you think?? :)

Now that we know that the KK266plus-R is one of the sweetest KT133A overclockers, let’s see how the board handles some real benchmarking and stress tests …

Page 7 : Benchmarking

Benchmarking

System setup

- AOpen HQ45 case
- AMD Athlon 1.4GHz
- IWill KK266plus-R Mainboard
- A non-conductive shim was used to protect the CPU (Supplied by CPUfx)
- Swiftech MCX370-0A cooler
- 256MB OCZ Performance Max SDRAM
- Visiontek GeForce3 Videocard
- IBM 20GB UDMA100 7200rpm hard drive
- Windows 2000 Pro + VIA 4in1 4.33 Official
- nVidia Detonator 12.9 and XP (21.81)

Now let’s head on to the benchmark results :

Sisoft Sandra 2001 Pro

Memory Benchmark

Quake 3 Arena v1.17 Timedemo 1

Quake 3 Arena v1.17 Torture Demo

3DMark2001

Page 8 : Conclusion

Conclusion

Good

- High performance board
- Overclocking / tweaking
- Plenty of room around the CPU socket
- 6 PCI and 1 ISA
- Onboard RAID
- Great onboard 6 channel sound
- Not expensive at all

Bad

- Layout could be better
- No active cooling on northbridge
- FSB range jumper
- Cheap DDR platforms are here

The KK266plus-R is a very good socket A mainboard. To me, it’s clear that IWill isn’t aiming at the low budget or OEM market with this board because it has too many features like onboard 6 channel sound, onboard RAID, 6 PCI slots, tweaks and overclocking options, etc. I have to say that I was impressed with the performance and stability of this board. I didn’t think there could be a better KT133A board than a KT7A-RAID from Abit or an 8KTA3+ from EPoX, but IWill has amazed me and proven to us that we can never say never. I would definately recommend the IWill KK266plus-R board to everyone who wants to upgrade their current non-DDR platform to possibly the best KT133A socket A solution known to mankind! If you’re planning on building a whole new system, than I would strongly suggest that you go the DDR way …

The KK266plus-R motherboard from IWill deserves the O Power Award because this simply is the ‘best’ KT133A we have had in our labs until now! It manages to combine the overclocking potential of an Abit board with the stability of an Asus board … Way to go, IWill!