By now the average overclocker has a fair sized collection of slockets. Some for Celerons, some for FC-PGA, and some that have fallen under the strain of extreme cooling and condensation. Most of the time we buy slockets by price. Given a choice between a $25 Slocket or a $16 one the choice is obvious. They all do the same thing, so what difference can their be?

Quality is one of those things you either look for or overlook. We have had a good many slockets pass through our machines, and although the $16 slocket will get you where you want to go, for an overclocker it is worth shelling out a few extra bucks to get something better than a no-name PCB.

For instance all the contacts on this Asus S370-DL slocket are fully gold plated. We have seen some cards in the past corrode over after being used in conjunction with a TEC that developed condensation problems. While gold plating is no substitution for proper insulation and potting, it does help prevent any undue corrosion that may occur.

Another small thing some manufacturers overlook is board layout. And no we're not talking capacitors or jumper pins but small board mounted resistors and ceramic capacitors. Often these small and fragile components are placed too close to the retaining clips and are damaged when a heat sink is removed. Asus seems to keep a good sized area clear of these little troublemakers.

Asus maintain very high quality in just about everything they make, and their slocket III reflects that. In typical Asus format, the slocket even comes with printed instructions! This particular FC-PGA/socket 370 to Slot 1 card comes with jumper settings printed on the back of the card. A small feature but one that will come in handy when the instructions are lost, as they always seem to be.

The S370-DL accepts chips with a Front Side Bus of up to 133Mhz and can be used for dually FC-PGA Coppermine and socket 370 Celeron applications. The card is able to acquire temperature data from the chips diode and pass it on to the motherboard and system for monitoring. Jumpers give control over the Vcore (1.5V to 2.6V in 0.05V and 0.1V increments).

 Retaining Clips are sometimes overlooked as a feature, but do hold their place of importance for several reasons. Most obviously they hold the card in the slot and stop it from falling out if there is a heavy heatsink attached. They also stop the card from moving about if the computer is jarred, avoiding a system hang. Some of Asus's slockets have the full edge of the card covered, this one only has two small sections.

While those two clips may help the average person, they come in really handy for coolers like the MC1000, which uses the Asus Slocket as the standard card. The main reason for this preference by Swift Tech is that the card only has jumpers on it and no large capacitors sticking out. Plus, those screw holes which keep the plastic clips attached to the PCB allow the back plate of the MC1000 to be threaded through. So for those of you who happen to have one of these massive coolers, perhaps running a celery, an upgrade to an FC-PGA flavored processor could be in the works. Almost no customizing necessary either, just drop in a flip chip, and hook the card up to your cooler.

Overall we are very satisfied with the cards Asus puts out these days. Towards the first arrival of the FC-PGA there were a lot of problems with the socket arm interfering with the lower sitting heatsinks. Thankfully that problem has been addressed, and the socket 370 cam arms are now flush to the surface of the socket. Heatsinks sit straight, and the socket works as it should. What else could you ask for?