Abit KT133 M/B and AMD Athlon

[bighead111]

Hi All,

I'd like to build a AMD system, but before doing this, I'd like someone share the info please?
Anyone has a live experience about Abit KT133 socketA board? Better than ASUS one or not? Also, what are problems for AMD Athlon currently like incompatibilities for playing Games, like Graphix card driver or something??

 

[Geeba]

Don't get the KT133 chipset... get the new KT133A mobo. It's like the KT 133, but the bus speed is at 266 (133 MHz DDR), rather than 200, and they are only about 2 bucks more! Both Abit and Asus do a version of teh KT133A, both similar to their KT133 models. I have mates with both the Asus and Abit mobo's. The Abit one seems to be pretty solid. The Asus had a problem with required us to flash the bios. This process ended up killing 3 mobo's :frown: - to which Asus admitted it was their fault and replaced them . All these problems I think have now been sorted with later releases of the boards and the BIOS. The Abit looks better for later releases of Athlon chip (1.5Ghz+), as it has 3 phase power MOSFET's (transformers on the mobo). These can deliver more power to the chip and thus will be better with future Athons.
That's my 2 cents.... anybody else...

 

[bighead111]

Hi Geeba,

Much appreciated for your replay. I will probably go for the Abit not cos it sounded better, also it has RAID.
I'd like to ask you two more questions if you don't mind: You mentioned the KT133A, how would I identify it, cos the M/B has active fan installed on the chipset? Second one , if I have two HDD with different speed 5400 and 7200, will they work together with RAID or have to be the same speed??

 

[bw37]

I'm looking at the same MB. The Abit KT7-RAID is the "old", 100fsb one and the KT7A-RAID is the new, 133fsb one. Most of the web suppliers list them separately if they carry both. I see www.monarchcomputer.com has the A. Just be sure you order from somebody that acknowledges the difference. I assume once you have it in your hands, you'll be able to find the model # at the very least. Are you going to wait for the Athlon "C", 133/266fsb processor?

Check out www.videoguys.com for info on RAID set-ups. Nothing technical there, but they recommend using "identical" drives in a RAID 0 setup (the fast one). My guess is using different speed and size drives would slow things down and limit the effective drive size to 2X the smaller drive (if it worked at all).

Good Luck

 

[bighead111]

Thanks mate!! Is that the Athlon "C" a 1.5Ghz one?

 

[Guest]

there is no 1.5mhz athlon out yet... the athlon "C" starts at 1ghz and goes up to 1.2ghz...

<b>Voodoo</b><i>Child</i>

 

[bw37]

Lots of reading between the lines here but as I understand it, the Athlon "C" is (will be) shipped from AMD "ready" for 133fsb (KT133A, AMD 760 chipsets, etc.). All other/previous Athlons, even up to 1.2 Ghz are shipped ready for 100fsb. They can be modified to allow higher fsb speeds, but there's disagreement on which chips (speeds) can do it and how predictably or reliably they can do it. The "C" chips are not yet generally available, because AMD is shipping them first to OEM's like Micron to get DDR out to the general public whether they need it or not! We may have to wait awhile. Non-"C" Athlon chips should work at 100/200DDR fsb speeds without modification, but according to reviews here and on Anandtech, that may not be worth it (with current software). Bottom Line: To take advantage of 133 fsb speed on Athlon (either PC-133mhz SDR or PC-2100 DDR), you need a CPU set for 133 mhz actual fsb. Only the "C" is shipped from AMD in that condition (guaranteed?)

Hopefully others here will agree or disagree with what I've just said.

 

[Guest]

Anyone know wether or not the AMD 1.3gig thats being released on monday is a T-bird C???

"Its all in good fun till someone loses an eye!"