Application	Number of Crashes Caused
Distributed.net RC5	0
SETI@home Client V3	0
MadOnion 3DMark2000	1
WinAmp MP3 Playback	0
Intel IOMeter	1
Operating System (requiring Hard-boot)	0

Overall, the board performed well, and exhibited above average stability. In fact, the board performed most of our tests with excellence. We did, however, encounter some difficulties with some of the standby/low-power modes in Windows 98. About half the time, the board would not recover from standby or power-down modes under Windows 98. Simply turning off power saving modes eliminated this problem. As yet, we’re not certain what was causing the difficulty, although we’re inclined to believe it had more to do with the chipset than ECS’ board, based on past experience (we’ve seen problems like this with non-Intel chipsets in Windows 98 in the past). This problem did not occur under Windows 2000. That small issue aside, the board was quite stable.

	STREAM Memory Bandwidth	Quake 3 Arena (640x480x16)
ECS K7S5A (SiS735), 266MHz / 266MHz (FSB/Mem)	732 MB/s	194.9
ECS K7S5A (SiS735), 266MHz / 133MHz (FSB/Mem)	586 MB/s	179.9
Iwill KK266Plus (VIA KT133A), 266MHz / 133MHz (FSB/Mem)	578 MB/s	179.2
Abit KT7A-RAID (VIA KT133A), 266MHz / 133MHz (FSB/Mem)	581 MB/s	179.2
Iwill KK266 (VIA KT133A), 266MHz / 133MHz (FSB/Mem)	574 MB/s	179.3
Gigabyte GA-7DX (AMD 760), 266MHz / 266MHz (FSB/Mem)	682 MB/s	186.4
Iwill KA266-R (ALi MAGiK), 266MHz / 266MHz (FSB/Mem)	641 MB/s	169.9

In terms of raw performance, it appears at first glance as though the early reports of a rather speedy SiS735 were accurate. Paired with DDR memory, the K7S5A performed better than any other Athlon board, DDR or otherwise, that we’ve tested to date. Equipped with SDR, the K7S5A performed on par with KT133A boards currently available. Again, we remind you that these benchmarks in motherboard reviews are here merely to reaffirm that a board’s performance is within the norm. We’ll investigate the performance of the 735 more closely in an upcoming chipset review.