Features

Here are the primary features supported by the AZ11E, taken straight from the manual:

Leading Edge Chipset
VIA's VT8363 is a single-chip North Bridge for Socket A based Athlon CPUs with 200MHz front side bus with AGP 4X and PCI plus advanced memory controller that supports PC133/PC100 SDRAM and VCM.

VIA VT686B is a highly integrated I/O peripheral controller to achieve a PC99-compliant system. The 686B also supports the ATA/100 standards.

Versatile Main Memory Support
Accepts up to 1.5GB DRAM using three DIMMs of 32, 64, 128, 256, and 512MB with support for lighting-fast SDRAM (100MHz/133MHz). The latest Virtual Channel Memory (VCM) SDRAM also supported. This board allows the FSB and DRAM to be asynchronous.

AMD Processors Support
Duron Socket A CPU 600/650/700/750/800 at 100MHz FSB with AMD bus for double data transfer rate at 100MHz for an effective 200MHz transfer rate.

Athlon Socket A CPU 700/750/800/850/900/950/1/1.1GHz/and up to 1.2GHz at 100MHz FSB with AMD bus for double data transfer rate at 100MHz for an effective 200MHz transfer rate.

CNR, AGP, and PCI Expansion Slots
One CNR, one AGP Bus expansion slot, and five PCI Bus expansion slots provided the room to install a full range of add-on cards.

Enhanced PCI Bus Master IDE Controller with Ultra DMA 33/66/100 Support
Integrated Enhanced PCI Bus Master IDE controller features two dual-channel connectors that up to four Enhanced IDE devices, including CD-ROM and Tape Backup Drives, as well as Hard Disk Drives supporting the new Ultra DMA 100 protocol. Standard PIO Mode 3/4, DMA Mode 2/4, and UltraDMA-100 Mode 5 devices are also supported.

Convenient Rear Panel USB Connection Support
Two USB ports integrated in the rear I/O panel with two USB front panel connections allows convenient and high-speed Plug and Play connections to the growing number of USB compliant peripheral devices on the market.

Features discussed

One of the primary features the AZ11E adds over previous designs with clock multiplier adjustment is native support for the ATA/100 protocol. Unlike ASUS (who uses the Promise ATA/100 controller on the A7V), or ABIT (who uses the Highpoint HPT370 controller on the KT7-RAID) whose external controllers add to the cost of the motherboard.

The 686B chip, the green module on the right is Audio Alert (optional)

However, one big disappointment for us was the lack of the sixth PCI slot. To date, all KT133 motherboards aimed for the enthusiast community have featured six PCI slots. With the AZ11E one PCI slot short, some will be disappointed with the expansion options present on this motherboard, even if they don't intend on using six PCI slots initially.

We also wished FIC had included a 2-port USB header in the AZ11E packaging. VIA's KT133 chipset natively supports up to 4 USB ports yet the AZ11E only provides two.