Dual P3 chipset/mobo

[kcamera]

I'm upgrading my machine to a dual processor system, and am frustrated by the selection of platforms. All I'm replacing is the motherboard and processors, the rest is already up-to-date.

I've decided on 133MHz FSB, socket 370 P3's for the processors (~833-1000MHz). I need to keep my 256MB of ECC PC100, so the Intel chipsets are out of the question (sigh, I do hate their RDRAM decision). AGP 4x is a must (to feed a GeForce 2 GTS Annihilator 2 card); UDMA100 would be nice (although I have a Promise card which could use up a slot if needed); and onboard LAN would be ideal but not necessary. It needs to work reliably with Win2K, too.

Can anyone give me some suggestions on which board to go with? My choices seem to be the VIA Apollo Pro 133A (probably the latest Tyan Tiger) or ServerWorks platforms. However, I'm a little scared by the reported glitches with VIA (AGP problems, UDMA33 limit, some Win2K failures), and all the ServerWorks-based boards have undesired SCSI and 64-bit PCI, not to mention cost a fortune. I recently heard of the MSI-694D board (by the way, is that made by MicroStar?), but haven't heard much about reliablity or compatibility.

Thanks for the help!
Kevin

 

[Guest]

Check these mobos (w. VIA Apollo Pro133A chipset):

ABIT VP6
Gigabyte GA-6VXDC7
MSI 694D Pro
Tyan Tiger 133

 

[kcamera]

Thanks for the suggestions. Does anyone out there own these boards and run Windows 2000? Or have any rants or raves about any one of them?

 

[Guest]

I'm using an Epox EP-D3VA board. with dual 866Mhz P3's. I know it's basically an unknown company but the board seems pretty good, though I've only had it for about a month.