VIA Apollo Pro 133A Motherboard Roundup - July 2000

QDI Advance 10A

QDI Advance 10A Specifications
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CPU Interface	Socket-370
Chipset	VIA Apollo 133A VIA 694X North Bridge VIA 686A South Bridge
L2 Cache	N/A (on-chip)
Form Factor	ATX
Bus Speeds	66 / 75 / 83 100 / 103 / 105 / 110 / 112 / 115 124 / 133 / 140 / 150
Voltages Supported	Auto Detect
Memory Slots	3 168-pin DIMM Slots
Expansion Slots	1 AMR Slot 1 AGP Slot 5 PCI Slots (4 Full Length) 1 ISA Slot (1 Full Length / 1 Shared)
Onboard Audio	Analog Devices AD1881 AC'97 CODEC
BIOS	AWARD BIOS 6.00PG

QDI is a name that's not known by many, but those who have heard of it know that they're a solid company. In fact, if you listen to QDI, they are the first ones to release a board with a jumperless CPU setup, back in the early Socket-7 days. More recently, QDI has received a lot of publicity for their KT133 board that claims to be able to unlock the multiplier of AMD Socket-A CPU's. That board has not been released yet, but maybe the VIA 133A-based Advance 10A can give us some insight into the type of products QDI produces.

The most important features on the Advance 10A are all QDI's "Easy" features, including SpeedEasy, LogoEasy, BIOS-Protect Easy. SpeedEasy simply refers to QDI's jumperless CPU setup, which is actually not 100% jumperless. Two jumper blocks determine the default FSB speed of the CPU and can be set to Auto, 66, 100, or 133 MHz. Depending on the setting of these jumpers, different FSB speeds will be available to you in the BIOS. The selection of FSB speeds is pretty minimal and we'd really like to see core voltage adjustments, however.

LogoEasy allows you to place a 640x480, 256 color image at boot up. While it's not the most useful feature for most AnandTech readers, OEM's love the ability to customize their systems with their own branding. BIOS-Protect Easy is a simple way of protecting the BIOS by disabling the ability to flash it. This is potentially useful given the fact that some recent viruses actually attack the system BIOS and try to corrupt it. Just don't forget to disable this feature when you are actually trying to flash the BIOS intentionally with an upgrade.

The construction quality of the Advance 10A is impeccable, with Foxconn connectors throughout - even the heatsink on the chipset is a Foxconn unit. QDI was also kind enough to actually include the USB cable required for using the 3rd and 4th USB ports built into the 686A Super South Bridge.

It should be noted that the Advance 10E should be on its way to stores soon, which loses an ISA slot, while adding a PCI slot and more room around the CPU socket for larger heatsinks.