Best and Most Stable Mobo for AMD T-Bird?

[Guest]

Sup,
In a few weeks I plan on building a comp using a 900MHZ T-Bird, but I was wondering: WHICH MOBO IS THE BEST?

Now, before some of you post "Uhh, what are you looking for, what kind of parts you buyin, etc", here it is:

I want something REALLY FRIGGIN STABLE. I don't care about overclocking. My current PII crashes like a drunken blind-man driving a Ferrarri. I just want something that will not crash much with the following components:

Win ME or Win2k (depends what kind of mood I'm in.)
AMD Athlon T-Bird 900 MHz
256MB Crucial Ram PC133
ASUS V7700 Deluxe (with all the in/outputs)
CreativeLabs Soundblaster Live! mp3
ASUS 8x DVD
Case w/ 300W PS (enclosure to be determined)

I'd prefer not for it to come with integrated components, but will settle if price is right and stability is there.

I'm looking primarily at ABIT, ASUS, and maybe MSI. Mostly A7V, A7V133, KT7A

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
NeuralPlexus

 

[Guest]

I do not know the answer to your question but I can offer you you one piece of advice - look for a board that only has what you need - let me clairify. If you read through the many posts on this site and many others you will see that people are struggling with many of the new boards with raid controllers etc.. Reason is that they have so many options which consume resources that they are difficult (not impossible but difficult) to configure. My advice is that you only buy what you need. If you don't need a raid controller do not buy one. Similarly if you know you want to use your own sound and video cards don't buy a board with on-board sound and video. All this should make it much easier to achieve the stable configuration you are looking for.

I've found my ABIT to very stable. No crashes since I've owned it (3 weeks), except while experimenting with oclocking. I have been running this board at 139MHz with fastest settings using a 1gig T-bird 8*139=1112 as my normal settings.

This is the first system I've ever owned that I purchased "premium memory". I'm starting to believe that memory alone can have a big impact on system stability - but I can't back this up. I'd be curious to see results if Tom would run some mainstream boards through some benchmark test for stability with highend vs. generic ram to find out what impact memeory might have on stability.

ABIT KT7A Raid; 1ghz T-bird; 256 MB CAS 2 Ram; VisionTek G-force 2 GTS 32 Mb DDR; SBL Plat 5.1

 

[Guest]

Abit KT7A-RAID mobo... the current performance/stability king (just search for reviews on it).

 

[Bubba]

I have the A7V and it is very stable for me.
I see you have or are getting Crucial ram and other big name brand parts so I don't think you should have any problems with it.

 

[Arrow]

I also recommend the Asus A7V for you. Make sure you get a good-branded, AMD approved power supply.

Rob
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[Guest]

Thanks, but I think I'll give it a try.

But I gotta ask:
Some people (in reallife) have been telling me that, while others say any good-brand 300W PS would suffice (even if it isn't certified).

What's the reasoning behind the certification? Is it ventilation superiority, a particualr voltage/ampage, etc?