Motherboard choice

I am most likely going to be building my first system in about a week, for my family. Unfortunetely, my mother, who is providing the funds, does not want me to overclock the processor. For this reason, I will get a 900 mhz Tbird, rather than a 700 mhz Duron. I want a nice stable motherboard, that does not neccesarily need to be able to overclock. While the Asus A7V and Abit KT7 seem to be the most popular boards, I was thinking about getting a Gigabyte GA-72Z, as it costs about $30 less and has creative onboard audio, comparable to a soundblaster, which is probably worth another $40. What would you guys recommend for a system that you are not going to overclock?

I Bought a GA-72Z a while ago and it never worked I returned it and got my money back. I then Bought an A7V and except for the BIOS probs in Win2K it runs very stable. I won't recommend a Gigabyte board it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

This new forum sucks

I highly recommend not overclocking your system. There are so many problems that you can run into, I really don't think it is worth it.

This is what I base my opinion on. I have yet to see a noticeable improvement (in actual use) with modest (=safe) overclocking. Furthermore, when I simply upgraded from, for example a 400Mhz Celeron to 533 Celeron, I noticed only very small changes in most applications (Photoshop etc.) and even in games (given that you have a pretty good 3D accelerator). As TH has shown, the CPU is generally not the bottleneck for 3D games unless you have a really poorly performing video card.

In summary, the satisfaction for most people, gained from safe overclocking, in my opinion is purely psychological--it makes you feel you are getting something for nothing. Stick with your Mom's suggestion. Just imagine how stupid you would feel if you burned out the CPU, or even if you screwed up things only for a couple of days.

Remember Mothers Know Motherboards (MKM why do you think the things are called motherboards in the first place) and they are ALWAYS right!

Dan S. Tong
Tong Computer Consulting
Chicago, IL USA

Out of all of the KT133 motherboards the Asus A7V out performs all the others. Tom's Hardware has a good review on the top ten motherboards for the Duron and T-bird. It's a very stable board (with the latest flash for W2k), and you can get it with sound included. There are 3 different versions of the board.......with sound, without sound, and without the dip switches for the multipliers. I would spend the extra money and go with the A7V. They are running for about $159.00 (without sound)......I don't know how much the ones with sound are. I also have not had very much luck with Gigabyte boards. Hope this helps you out.

Been OCing my cleron 300 at 450 since I got it approx 2yrs now. Used almost everyday. If you can afford to get the higher end processor then you don't need to OC.
Your trying to save 20 bucks for a lesser quality mobo.
I personally have never subscribed to mobo with on board video or audio. Users always grow out theses features fast and end up buying an extra board to plug in sooner then they expected.

So spend the money now and get the better components that will save you the money, time and hassle later.

Good luck and make sure you use proper grounding and antistatic procedures when putting your unit together.


Take Care.
If money was no object, how could you spend it!

What's wrong with onboard audio?

I was under the impression that the only downfall in terms of overclocking for the MSI is the lack of multiplier changer in the bios or software. I bought one anyhow because of the stability issue, but I'd still like to have the multiplier changing ability.

I would definately recommend the MSI K7T pro2, I have built 2 systems so far and no problems. I also have 3 friends using the same mobo( no complaints so far). Asus and Abit have some great mobos( their features and performance are better than the MSI K7TPro2) however, there are a few people out there that are experiencing problems with their Asus/Abit mobos( maybe its due to faulty shipments, who knows?). The K7TPro2 is not a screamer like the A7V or KT7 but it is extremely stable, If you are not interested in OClocking go for the MSI K7Tpro2. It includes onboard sound and multiplier settings(If you do decide to overclock), UDMA 66 support ,6 pci slots and the smart DLED which is a useful tool for newbies setting up their own system. Plus, it is waaayyy cheaper than the asus & abit mobos. One word of caution the smart Dled voice can be barely heard.Good Luck

I like the ASUS A7V for single hard drive setups if you want to play with RAID get the ABIT KT7R. MSI makes a very good board also. Stay away from on board audio it's not as good as PCI. In the US, onboard audio is about $10 to $15 more per MOBO and it's worth about that much. Even the cheapest PCI card is usually better. Make sure you have a CPU fan and that you use thermal conductive grease between the CPU and heatsink. i.e. you can't just put the heatsink on top of the CPU with nothing between the two.

I remember my first computer it was a long long time ago...she was a 486DX50...or SX66...

So what's wrong with using the Epox 8KTA2 ?
rather than UDMA 66 you get UDMA 100 for the drives, onboard sound (4-ch)?? 6-PCI, 1-ISA, 1-AGP, costs less, not sure bout the msi's... I used some socket 7 Epox boards in the past with great luck. The 8KTA2 is also over-clockable.
take care
Atman