Built around the VIA KT333 Northbridge and the VIA VT8233A Southbridge, AOpen's AK77-333 uses the now familiar AOpen "Black Beauty" PCB and can support ATA/133 as well as DDR333.

The AK77-333 is a jumperless design with all the system adjustments being made in the BIOS. This leaves the board well laid out, with plenty of space around each component. In addition, this is a board that doesn't have the graphics card sitting in the way of the memory locking latches, so you can swap and replace memory without removing the graphics card first - quite a rarity. The AGP slot also has a retention device to hold the graphics card in place.

There's plenty of space around the CPU socket so you can fit all but the largest of CPU coolers. Also well thought out is the placement of the IDE and floppy connectors, neatly located on the edge of the board, allowing for tidy cable runs.

As for expansion, the AK77-333 has all the standard slots; AGP 4X, five PCI and the dreaded CNR slot along with three DIMM slots that support up to 3GB of PC2700 memory. There is also a six port USB 2.0 controller. The board also handles 5.1 audio but, unfortunately, although the headers for SPDIF connectors are present on the motherboard, no separate back bracket with the necessary ports is supplied. In all other respects, though, this is a powerful, good value motherboard.