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Originally published at Internet.comAnyone who's followed the motherboard industry for the past few years should know by now that Elitegroup Computer Systems is firmly planted in the performance market. Enhanced features and active VRM cooling set the company's Extreme series apart from lesser models. Today, we look at one of the series' latest versions, the KA3 MVP. 
Three things new to the series in the KA3 MVP are support for AMD's Socket AM2, ATI's Crossfire Express 3200 chipset, and the de-emphasis of the word Extreme, which now only appears on the box (and not on the board or documentation.) Does a less-boastful name indicate that Elitegroup is focusing on a more mature, well-rounded value offering with a full-featured performance motherboard?
Layout and Features
Supporting AMD's latest Socket AM2 Athlon64 and X2 processors, the KA3 MVP comes packed with just about every interface a typical upper-range buyer could want, which is a good thing since this board uses only five of the available seven slot positions! Dual Ethernet networking, 8-channel audio, SATA/ATA/RAID support, and FireWire top the list of must-have features.
Two PCI Express x16 slots support dual graphics and Crossfire mode, and an x1 slot between them supports a handful of multimedia and storage interface cards. A total of 40 PCI Express lanes allow the ATI Crossfire Xpress 3200 Northbridge to provide all 16 pathways to both x16 slots, with room to spare for onboard controllers. Of the two traditional PCI slots, the yellow "Extreme PCI" slot features added power filtering to increase signal quality for sound/multimedia and network cards. 
The low number of expansion slots allows a vast amount of clearance around the CPU socket and DIMM slots, yet at least one of the four on-board SATA ports behind the upper x16 slot will be blocked by coolers on long graphics cards. Possible upside for showy system builders are the LED's located under the corners of rear slots, which flash in strobe fashion when no cards are installed.
A combination of chipset features and add-in controllers handle a wide array of interface needs. The new SB600 Southbridge adds HD Azalia Audio and supports two ATA plus four SATA drives, with the option to use RAID modes 0, 1, 0+1, 5, or JBOD. Audio output is channeled through Realtek's ALC883 8-channel codec, with Gigabit networking via Agere's 1310L PHY. Realtek's RTL8100C PCI-to-Ethernet controller adds a second (slower, at 10/100 speeds) network port, JMicron's JMB363 PCI-Express-to-ATA controller adds support for two more ATA and SATA drives, and VIA's VT6308P adds IEEE1394 FireWire support. 
Included on the rear port panel are legacy keyboard/mouse/serial ports, four USB connections, optical and coaxial S/PDIF audio outputs, and six analog audio ports. Six is the magic number for oft-overlooked analog audio jacks, because four are required to support 8-channel audio and the two remaining are Microphone and Line level inputs. The only thing missing from the panel is the old parallel printer port, which can still be used via a slot bracket adapter. 
Accessories include the manual, software bundle application CD, driver CD, standard-sized rectangular port cover plate, Top-Hat BIOS recovery modules, 80-wire ATA 133/100/66 cable, 40-wire ATA33 cable, single-drive floppy cable, four Serial ATA cables, a 4-pin Molex-to-dual-SATA adapter/splitter, network crossover cable, parallel-port breakout cable, SATA port multiplier breakout cable for external SATA devices. Finally, a breakout plate for front-panel use offers two USB ports, FireWire, and a 3.5" drive bay adapter. 
The bonus software includes Wasay ProMagic Plus and DPU recovery utilities, plus some freeware that you could just as easily pick up from the Web. The Top-Hat BIOS module includes a chip and socket that snaps in place over the installed BIOS chip, to allow booting if a flash failure ever occurs.
BIOS and Overclocking
In addition to the usual settings, ECS provides advanced configurations that allow for increasing clock speed or decreasing latency for optimal performance, and for increasing voltage to stabilize faster settings. In the order shown below, these are: CPU internal multiplier from 4x up to the CPU limit; CPU over-voltage up to 1.400V in 0.0250V increments; HyperTransport voltage up to +0.15V in 0.05V increments; Northbridge voltage up to +0.15V in 0.05V increments; DIMM voltage up to +0.35 V in 0.05V increments; and CPU reference clock from 200MHz to 500MHz, in 1MHz increments. 
Amateurs can overclock too, with automatically load-sensing "Dynamic Overclocking" settings, which offers a max overclock of 30MHz in 2MHz increments. Meanwhile, passive-cooling freaks will be more interested in the refined under-voltage range from 0.5500V to 0.7625V, in tiny 0.0125V increments.
Memory ratios of DDR2-533 to DDR2-800 are selectable, with the full range of latency configurations. Below are the settings we chose for our Super Talent DDR2-800: 
Overclock attempts that at first seemed successful would later result in an inability to cold boot. We reached a maximum bus speed of 228.5MHz at 5x HT multiplier, 256.5 at 4x HT, and 267.5MHz at 3x HyperTransport without cold boot issues - so we recommend caution, since "good" settings can often become unworkable following a complete shut down.
Performance
Battling for similar markets, ECS and Foxconn face off using ATI and nVidia chipsets for AM2! The remaining configuration follows: Testing System Configuration Motherboard ECS KA3 MVP
Foxconn C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H Video cards Diamond Viper X1600Pro 512MB PCI-E
ATI X1600 Pro 512MB PCI-E RAM Super Talent PC2-6400 CAS4 CPU AMD Athlon64 3200+, 2.0GHz Orleans Hard Drive Hitachi T7K250 250GB 7200RPM Optical Sony CDU4811 CD-ROM Sound Unused (default onboard drivers loaded) Network Unused (default onboard drivers loaded) OS Windows XP Service Pack 2 Drivers ATI SB600 5.10 chipset
nForce 6.34 chipset
ATI Catalyst 6.8 Graphics
Both companies "cheat" a little on the reference clock, Foxconn choosing 200.9MHz and ECS using 200.5MHz. The C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H could be manually configured to run 200.0MHz, but the KA3 MVP could not, so both were left at slightly overclocked "default" states to make for the fairest comparison.
Sandra 2005 provides the base performance comparisons before we move on to application-driven benchmarks. 
ECS/ATI wins Sandra Arithmetic, even though Foxconn/nVidia clocks the CPU 4MHz higher. 
Using the CPU's multimedia extensions, the KA3 MVP again edges out the nVidia board with the ridiculously long name. 
AMD's on-die memory controller should result in nearly-identical bandwidth benchmarks between different platforms, so we weren't surprised when Sandra showed a negligible difference.
Direct3D results lead off with KA3 MVP to C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H single-card comparisons, after which we added KA3 MVP Crossfire-mode results to highlight its performance capabilities. 
Older 3D benchmarks tend to be CPU-limited, and given the good Sandra CPU results we were a bit surprised to see the KA3 MVP show slight losses in 3DMark2001SE and AquaMark3 TriScore. On the other hand, the greatest single-card difference was only around half a percent. Crossfire fans will be thrilled by a performance increase of up to 80 percent achieved simply by adding a second card.
One place we haven't found Crossfire to work is in professional 3D Modeling applications, an area where SLI still shines. Since Crossfire is ineffective here, we've decided to include only single-card SPECviewperf 8.1 results. 
Similar performance across five of eight viewsets appears reasonable, but phenomenal losses in Catia, Pro-E, and Solidworks stand out. We can only assume this to be a driver issue, and look forward to future driver development.
Conclusion
The KA3 MVP is one of the most fully-featured boards ECS has yet offered, with FireWire, dual networking, dual RAID, Crossfire support, and active VRM cooling. While all these extra features are sufficient on their own, ECS could have gone further had it chosen a Gigabit controller for the second network port, and we'd have preferred a sink over the FET's rather than the buzzy little VRM cooling fan.
A good overall layout is diminished by the use of only five card slots on a form factor that supports up to seven, and by the fact that one of the x16 slots may cause large graphics cards to interfere with Serial ATA headers.
Average performance, average overclocking, and a good feature set make the KA3 MVP a good value for an average Web price of $140. Elitegroup's recent downplay of the "Extreme" branding make this appear to be a board for the more "serious" upper-mainstream market. However, a few design choices - specifically the bright LED strobe lights for empty slots and the use of a VRM cooling fan where a silent sink would have sufficed - place the KA3 MVP back into the younger buyer's market.
Those who appreciate the aesthetics may want to rush out and buy the KA3 MVP, while those who can simply tolerate them will find the board a good value. Serious buyers, however, might be turned off.
Pros: * Crossfire support * Dual networking * Dual SATA/ATA/RAID controllers * IEEE1394 FireWire controller * 8-channel audio with full set of analog ports * Both optical and coaxial digital audio out * Reasonable overclocking options * Excellent cable kit
Cons: * Noisy VRM cooling fan where passive sink would have sufficed * Average overclocking and performance * Poor performance in a few professional graphics applications * Flashy appearance may put off serious buyers
The Verdict: The KA3 MVP offers every feature most AM2 Crossfire buyers could want - and possibly a few features they would rather do without. A reasonable price broadens its market appeal. SysOpt Product Info
Product:
KA3 MVP (Extreme)
Category:
Motherboard
Avg. Price:
$140
Manufacturer:
Elitegroup Computer Systems, Inc.
U.S. Headquarters
45401 Research Ave
Fremont, CA 94539
510-226-7333
Availability:
Now
Ratings: (Best of four stars)
Features: 
Performance: 
Value:
Best for:
Mid-priced gaming and performance systems
Table of Contents • Introduction • Layout and Features • BIOS and Overclocking • Performance • Conclusion
Author: Thomas Soderstrom
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