Who said you can't get an Alpha to fit? :-)
Who said you can't get an Alpha to fit? :-)
The Asus K7M continues Asus's tradition of making stable high quality motherboards. It's by far the best Athlon overclockable motherboard on the market. The K7M comes in two models, one with on board sound and one without. Normally I hate on board sound because the manufacturer puts in some cheap Sound Blaster 16 chip. However the Yamaha XG chip that the K7M comes with sounded damn sweet! It was every bit as good as the sound produced by the Diamond Monster Sound MX300. The only thing missing from the XG is A3D so if you want true 3D sound, you'll still have to get an A3D card. This motherboard comes with all the features one can ask for. A ton of FSB settings, ATA/66 support, 5 PCI slots, support for up to 768 Megs of RAM, XG sound and super stable at overclocked speeds.
My biggest complaint with the K7M is the position of the power connector. I'm still wondering why they chose that location? I was able to fit an Alpha P3125 to the Athlon and install it into the K7M so it cleared the power connector but the mods of pretty scary to attempt. It requires you to strip your Athlon to bare PCB and then tap the Alpha P3125 to make new mounts. Go here to find out how it's done.
I am concerned about Asus's support for the K7M. For some reason this motherboard is not listed on the Asus website. If you visit the Asus Motherboard page, you'll see all the Intel motherboards listed but not the K7M. I had to use the site search engine to find it. Maybe someone at Asus can shine a light on this?
At $179, the Asus K7M is not cheap but you do get a lot of features for the price, including the best on board audio I've ever heard. If you don't need the built in sound, you can get the K7M for as low as $149. If you have an Athlon and want to overclock without the use of a gold finger device, the Asus K7M is the only way to go.
The Goods
Very stable at overclocked speed
Yamaha XG sound
Softmenu type FSB adjustments
Voltage adjustments
ATA/66 support built in
The Bads
Power connector in stupid location
Voltage jumpers hard to get at
Rating 8/10