1.3Special features

1.3.1 Product highlights

Latest processor technology

The AMD Athlon™ 64 desktop processor is based on AMD’s 64-bit architecture, which represents the landmark introduction of the industry’s first x86-64 technology. This next-generation processor provides a dramatic leap forward in compatibility, performance, investment protection, and reduced total cost of ownership and development. See page 2-4 for details.

HyperTransport™ Technology

HyperTransport™ Technology is a high-speed, low latency, point-to-point link designed to increase the communication speed between integrated circuits in computers, servers, embedded systems, and networking and telecommunicatons equipment up to 48 times faster than some existing technologies.

Serial ATA solution

The motherboard supports four interfaces compliant to the Serial ATA (SATA) specification, an evolutionary replacement of the Parallel ATA storage interface. The Serial ATA specification allows for thinner, more flexible cables with lower pin count, reduced voltage requirement, up to 150 MB/s data transfer rate. See page 2-25.

Dual SATA RAID

The K8V motherboard provides two high-performance Serial ATA RAID controllers that enhances hard disk performance and data back-up protection without the cost of additional RAID cards. The Promise 20378 RAID controller incorporates two Serial ATA and one parallel connector with RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1 functions while the VIA® VT8237 RAID controller provides another two Serial ATA connectors for RAID 0 and RAID 1 functions. See pages 5-18, 5-25.

AGP 8X support

AGP 8X (AGP 3.0) is the next generation VGA interface specification that enables enhanced graphics performance with high bandwidth speeds up to 2.12 GB/s. See page 2-18.

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Chapter 1: Product introduction