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The KX600S is based on the VIA KT600 chipset and is obviously for the AMD Athlon XP or Duron platform, supporting the new 400Mhz FSB. Among its features are as follows:
- 3 DDR333/266//400 Memory Sockets
- AGP 8X , 6 channel AC 97 Audio
- 5 x PCI slots (PCI 2.2 compliant)
- 2 Serial ATA150 Channels, Serial ATA RAID 0,1
- 2 ATA133 Channels, up to 4 ATA 133 IDE Devices
- 8 USB 2.0/1.1 Ports (6 ports by optional cable)
- LAN: 3Com 3C920 LAN Chip
- AC97: Realtek ALC655
This board uses the ATX form factor and measures in at about 8 inches wide by 12 inches tall.
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The CPU socket is a little cramped, and may not be the best for fitting heatsinks like the SLK-900A, but we did not have one to test. Obviously this will not fit any bolt-on heatsinks, or most waterblocks, due to its lack of mounting holes around the CPU socket. As is also visible, this board uses a 2-phase power system.
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The northbridge heatsink is in the rather odd shape of a wave, and such a design hinders mounting a fan on top. However, if it's that important, you can swap out this heatsink with a Vantec Iceberq, or something even more extreme. Unlike nForce2 boards, the KT600 northbridge is horizontally mounted, not diagonally.
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The Southbridge is bare, but VIA's chipsets run pretty cool, so no cooling is required. This chipset has built in support for Serial ATA, and we hear it's some of the fastest support on the market. Much to my regret, I didn't have any Serial ATA drives to test this controller with; however, if you do a web search, you should be able to find user experiences with the KT600's Serial ATA.
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The RAM slots being so close to the AGP really worries me, but it should fit our 9800 testing card just fine. Thankfully, the Albatron includes an AGP retention clip, to help keep your card in its place.
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The Albatron KX600S Pro contains the standard two IDE ports, as we'd expect to see. But where's the floppy controller?
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Ah, there it is! I must admit that the placement of the floppy connector on this board is in an odd spot, and may hinder accessibility in certain cases, thus requiring you to purchase a longer floppy cable. I would have preferred if the cable was up towards the top of the board, around where the IDE ports are.
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The BIOS chip is not user-removable, like we saw on the DFI Infinity 865PE. This board doesn't have rounded edges like we've seen on the offerings from Gigabyte and DFI, but this isn't really a big deal. Also, do keep in mind that KT600s do not have as many BIOS issues as nForce2 boards do, so the probability of your BIOS failing is much lower.
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The I/O panel of this board is also pretty spartan-- a 10/100mbit LAN port, and the AC97 audio (which has 3 connectors instead of 5, so if you want to hook up a surround sound system to the onboard audio, you will probably lose your line in and mic).
Now let's take a look at the board accessories.
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Included with the board are two IDE cables and one floppy cable. They are ribbon cables, but again, this is a low-cost board, so we can't always have the best of everything. 
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The backplate has support for 4 additional USB 2 ports, which is certainly nice. Nothing like wasting a whole PCI slot just to have 2 extra ports...
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Another nice touch was that Albatron included everything you'll need to install Serial ATA hard drives, including the power converter (for those of us without SATA connectors on our PSUs) and a grey SATA cable.
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Last but not least, Albatron includes a "Powered by Albatron" case badge (which isn't quite 1x1, a little smaller), and some big book with words and diagrams in it that nobody reads...I think it's called a manual, or something...
My thoughts so far...
The Albatron seems to be a real no-nonsense board, with everything you might need, but nothing you don't. No dual LAN, or Gigabit Ethernet, or 4 SATA ports, etc helps to keep the board costs down. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't have mounting holes, but other than that, it might be what the world needs...a cheap board with SATA that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
I'm going to take a look at the BIOS on this board and see what Albatron offers us.
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