Stability

     This motherboard ran great with no stability problems in non-overclocked conditions when I tested it with both, an AMD K6-2/K6-3D 300 and a Cyrix M II PR300. 

     A great plus for this motherboard is that I was able to run the AMD K6-2/K6-3D 300 flawlessly at 112MHz Bus Speed overclocking up to 336MHz (112 x 3).  I was able to boot successfully into Windows 98 without running into any problems.  (I was using Riva 128 with their latest Riva128Tweak version 2.52 that is optimized for AMD K6-2 3DNow! CPU and PC100 SDRAM.) 

Memory

     This motherboard contains 4 72-pin SIMMs and 2 168-pin DIMMs.  This is a great combination if your upgrading your old computer and you don't want to throw away your old Fast Page or EDO SIMMs.  But if your not worried about throwing away old SIMMs then this motherboard might not be the one for you, because the 2 DIMMs do not allow much SDRAM expandability. And that is too bad since this motherboard does have 1MB of cache. 

Expansion Slots

     This motherboard does contain 1 AGP, 3 PCI and 3 ISA slots, which is a great combo for most of us.  The AGP(Advanced Graphics Port) is great for AGP video cards which allow fast data transfer between the CPU and the graphics card.  This is a great improvement from PCI slots, since those could not handle the speed of high end 3-D graphics cards.  Three PCI and ISA slots is great, except for the fact that only one PCI slot is a full PCI slot and only 2 of the ISA or full ISA slots.  This is because the CPU gets in the way of the other slots so only a half-size expansion card will fit.  This could cause a problem if you plan on adding many expansion cards, especially full-size expansion cards. 

     The FIC VA-503+ is a very good motherboard if your upgrading your old computer and have to fit a Super7 in a Baby AT case.  This is probably the best AT Super7 motherboard out there.  This contains very useful SIMM slots which will allow you to use your older RAM chips along with newer ones so you don't have to throw away that expensive RAM.  This motherboard also contains DIMM slots which will allow you to add much more advanced RAM to your upgraded PC. 

     But if your planning on starting your PC from scratch i would recommend an ATX motherboard which has much more advanced features and allows all of your expansion slots to accommodate full expansion cards. Where in an AT motherboard some of the slots will not be able to hold a full size card.  But then it also depends on whether you are going to be using all the slots on the motherboard and with they're full size or not. 

     Another thing that will help you make up your mind about this motherboard is the fact that this motherboard's performance is at top notch.  FIC certainly knew what they were doing when they designed this motherboard. 

Jumper Settings CPU External Clock Settings

* - Not documented  CPU Multiplier Settings

Optimal VIA MVP3 Chipsets Bios Settings  

Price: very affordable