Asus vs. Gigabyte MB?

[how786]

Hi,
Final decision time for Athlon 1.2 CPU.
The ASUS A7M266 or the Gigabyte GA7-DX. The review here at Tom's seemed to find the ASUS a but faster but also stated:
"When you compare the three candidates' bus controllers, you will notice a serious difference: Asus A7M266 is equipped with a less elaborate two-phase-controller while Gigabyte and Biostar rely on a three-phase-controller. The advantages of a three-phase-controller lie in the significantly lower heat production at high voltages."

Any advice on which MB to purchase?
Best,
Doc



"We can do no great things, Only small things with Great Love"
Mother Theresa

 

[mwgorecki]

I intend to get the A7M266 next week myself, as other tests have shown the A7M266 on top, too. The GA7-DX does NOT have an AGP Pro slot - normal one.
Let me know what you get and how well it does!

Dated 3/14/2001:
Two major characteristics of the Asus A7M266 are the AGP Pro slot and the chipset's Northbridge which is furnished with a fan.
A rare appearance: The Asus A7M266 is supposed to be only available to the OEM market. End users will probably not get to see this board in retail shops.
The Asus A7M266 is generously equipped: Its equipment with a sound chip, AGP Pro slot and Ethernet controller leave hardly any room for criticism. The board's memory remains limited to 512 MB however, because the board manufacturer only allowed room for two memory slots.
There might be problems with the board design of the memory interface in general, as all three testing candidates prefer not to use more than two slots. One positive aspect to point out is that the Asus A7M266 offers the option of adjusting the voltage for the DDR memory modules. This allows aggressive memory timing while avoiding stability problems. We don't know however, how well the DDR-memory takes an increased voltage over a longer period.

The Biostar M7MIA is furnished with an additional RAID controller allowing the connection of up to eight IDE peripherals with Ultra-DMA/100.
A view of the IDE connections of the Biostar M7MIA.
The most striking feature of the Biostar is the integrated RAID controller (Highpoint), which can be addressed using different methods. Although the performance of this board is quite satisfactory when compared to the other two testing candidates, it is still placed behind the Asus A7M266, but ahead of the Gigabyte GA-7DX. The Biostar board is also equipped with a CNR-slot, which is known to be pretty useless to end users, as corresponding peripherals are still not available.

<b>The only representative in this review to be equipped with a normal AGP slot is the Gigabyte GA-7DX.</b> All other candidates are furnished with an AGP Pro slot.
In this review, the Gigabyte GA-7DX keeps a low profile. Nothing exceptional can be said of its features; in a test run it goes through its paces without problems. Its performance is almost identical to that of the Biostar.
The front-side-bus can be adjusted rather variably between 100 MHz and 149 MHz. These adjustments, however, have only little significance in real life because the clock multiplier cannot be altered. All told, the Gigabyte board is a good solution for OEM manufacturers looking for a solid board to use with DDR SDRAM memory. No more, no less.



sz

 

[Guest]

I tired to get the a7m266 but failed, it is a better board, but I have heard that asus has gone to the ali magic chip set, over amd 761 chip set. Have read better praise on the 761 chip set, so I went with the Gigabyte 7dx mobo, 1200 266fsb, ddr2100 256m, just love it. BUT get a good heatsink for the processor...My last mobo is an asus a7m slot type, and it still is a great performer.

JUST ONE PERSONS VIEW, JUST LIKE AN OPINION THE ONLY ONE THE MATTERS IS YOUR OWN.