Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top

ECS KV2 Extreme: Features and Layout

ECS KV2 Extreme Motherboard Specifications
CPU Interface	Socket 939 Athlon 64
Chipset	VIA K8T800 PRO/VT8237
Bus Speeds	200MHz to 511MHz (in 1MHz increments)
CPU Ratios	4x - 20x in 0.5x increments
PCI/AGP Speeds	Disabled, 66.0, 75.4
HyperTransport	1GHz to 200MHz (5x-1x)
Core Voltage	0.825V to 1.55V in .025V increments
DRAM Voltage	2.50V to 2.7V in 0.05V increments
AGP Voltage	1.45V, 1.53V, 1.57V, 1.60V
Chipset Voltage	None
Memory Slots	Four 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Unbuffered Memory to 4GB
Expansion Slots	1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots
Onboard SATA/RAID	2 SATA 150 drives by VIA VT8237 plus 2 SATA 150 by SiS 180 Can be combined in RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD
Onboard IDE	Two Standard VIA ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) plus 2 IDE 133/100/66 by SiS 180
Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394	8 USB 2.0 ports supported by VIA VT8237 2 IEEE 1394a FireWire Ports by VIA VT6307
DUAL Onboard LAN	Gigabit Ethernet by Marvel 88E8001 plus 10/100 by VIA VT6103L
Onboard Audio	Realtek ALC655 6-Channel with SPDIF
Tested BIOS	1.1A

ECS hopes that the bronze-foil box with a feature flap clearly announces that the ECS KV2 Extreme is a premium board. The Extreme name is reserved for the top ECS boards, and with the Socket 939 currently a premium board, the KV2 announces that ECS wants to be a contender at the top.

The KV2 Extreme even has the individual interior boxes that we first saw on Abit motherboards, carefully fitted to protect the manuals and brackets . This should not come as a complete surprise, since ECS also manufactures some motherboards for Abit. The KV2 is a 6-layer, 3-phase design, which includes all the bells and whistles that you have come to expect from top-of-the-line motherboards. This includes Dual RAID, Dual LAN, 4 SATA ports, 2 Firewire ports, provisions for 6 IDE drives, and active North Bridge cooling.

Just so you don't miss it, ECS even has a silver plaque on the purple KV2 announcing it is a member of the Extreme series. The layout of the board is generally excellent, showing great attention to the smallest details. ECS has placed the ATX, IDE, and floppy connectors in our preferred upper right edge location. Even the extra IDE for the 5^th and 6^th IDE is out of the way for the PCI slots.

The BIOS adjustments on the early versions of the KV2 were very sparse, but ECS quickly updated the KV2 Extreme with the CPU Frequency adjustments, ratios, and PCI/AGP lock that you would expect on a premium 939 motherboard. Our only complaints about the available options are that the vCore is still rather meager with a top of 1.55V; 1.70 volts would have been preferred. Also, the vDIMM to only 2.7V is low for a board that intends to compete in this arena - a range to at least 2.85V and preferably 3.0V would be better.

The range of CPU Frequency adjustments to 511 is incredible, but we found that we could only use a very small portion of that frequency range. While we verified that the AGP/PCI lock is working with a PCI Geiger, we were still limited in our overclocking attempts compared to other VIA boards in this roundup.