1Ghz or 1.2 for new DDR comp?

[Guest]

I'm going to assembling my own comp and I need help deciding wether to stay conservative with 1Ghz or pay the extra 50 bucks for 1.2Ghz. I'm going to buy a Biostar M7MIA DDR board w/ 256MB Crucial RAM. I'm a gamer and I have an ASUS V7700 GeForce2 GTS 32MB. I play first-person shooters mostly. So what do u think? 1 or 1.2?

 

[Arrow]

The extra 200mhz would do you good.

Rob
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[Guest]

Yeah, the higher the Athlon goes the bigger difference has shown between DDR and SDRAM.

 

[mwgorecki]

I agree with Arrow and ajwr 2000, but not your choice of motherboards. I got the Asus A7M266 mainboard - it is outperforming the Biostar board, which I believe has a sub-par AGP slot. As this is all just my opinion, feel free to do as you wish, obviously.

Check pricewatch.com for your components, as I just ordered the 1.33 GHz Athlon C Monday for $227 and it has already dropped to $210. The 1.2 looks to be $193 and the 1 GHz $149. Those are 266 MHz Athlon C prices.

sz

 

[Guest]

I was debating whether to get the Biostar or the MSI and I just decided the on the Biostar because it was cheaper and I didn't need 3 Memory slots. Prove me wrong, but I printed the specifications of both these boards and even the ASUS, I'm pretty sure all of them have AGP Pro. I'm not interested in overclocking if that's what you're inferring to as why ASUS is better.

 

[phsstpok]

You won't even notice the difference as the graphics card is the limiting factor.

Read about CPU and graphics card scaling here at THG.

<A HREF="http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q1/010302/index.html" target="_new">http://www4.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q1/010302/index.html</A>

 

[mwgorecki]

I as referring to the <b>stability</b> of the board, as I too have no intention of overclocking, which is why I choose it over others.

Check out this link: http://www.gotapex.com/reviews.php?rev=moboround/index.html

And a review from the same site a few weeks ago:
Deathmatch of the AMD Athlon DDR Mainboards
One to Grow On

The board we have selected as the best in the bunch is the Asus A7A266. A close second is the Iwill KA266-R. Coming in third is the Asus A7M266. Of course, you should keep in mind that what you view as important may be very different from us. For example, <b>if we were to select a board based solely on performance, the A7M266 would be our clear winner</b>. In this case, the A7A266 balances all of the necessary features and ingredients to make one hell of a board.

The time has come to draw this DDR roundup to a close and help you discern the best Athlon DDR mainboard. When considering the Asus A7M266, we see that it has several positive factors in its corner. The A7M266, because it utilizes the 760 AMD chipset, is already at an advantage to the the ALi-based boards, as our testing has proven the 760 a superior platform. The A7M266 delivered the most impressive benchmark scores consistently across all of our test. Despite it's excellent performance, easy installation and overall stability, we did not select it as the clear winner. The A7M266 neglects to include the core clock multiplier necessary for more effective overclocking and its cramped socket area negates the use of bigger heatsinks. It is also difficult to declare the A7M266 the winner due to the fact that, while it is still being manufactured in volume, it is quite a chore to find. Speaking of hard to find boards, the BIOSTAR M7MIA is not exactly overflowing the retail channel shelves.
Nevertheless, the M7MIA is a very attractive board based solely on its extremely low price. Once again, the M7MIA is at an advantage because it also uses the AMD 760 chipset, therefore its performance is above that of the Magik1 based boards here today. In the case of the M7MIA, however, we see that you do truly get what you pay for. Just because something is cheap does not increase its value if it is lacking in features and stability. For openers, the BIOSTAR board's layout is very poor as they push the IDE and FDD connectors to the bottom of the board. Also consider the poor placement of the ATX power connector, a tight socket A area, and only one fan header at the disposal of you heatsink. Combine that with the fact that the M7MIA turns in the lowest scores of the 760-based boards and offers little to no overclocking options, it is becoming easier to understand its low price.
The FIC AD11, on the other hand, offers excellent overclocking features such as: a core clock multiplier toggle, plenty of FSB settings, and vCore adjustment. In addition to its overclocking options, the AD11 was second only to the A7M266 in our benchmark results. As a strike against the FIC board, we have the fact that it was not that stable when operating on bus speeds in excess of 133MHz, or an effective 266MHz. Another problem that is evidently genetic in the 760 family, is that the AD11 offers little room around the socket and poor placement of the ATX power connector. A board that does not suffer from the dreaded poor positioning of the ATX power connector or from a cramped socket A, is the Asus A7A266.
The A7A266 was able to accommodate the biggest sinks we could throw at it. It also has two fan headers in close range to the socket and is the only board to move the ATX power connector to a spot on the board that minimizes airflow hindrance. The A7A266 was a breeze to install as, like its A7M266 big brother, it allows you to map IRQ's to specific PCI slots in the BIOS. Where overclocking is concerned, the A7A266 is a dream except that it does not have the jumpers to set the core clock. To make up for the lack of core clock adjustment, Asus offers you the ability to increase the FSB in 1MHz steppings, just like the A7M266. Both the A7A266 and A7M266 were the leaders in our tests for stability and overclockability. Surprisingly, the Ali Magik1-based A7A266 kept pace with the 760 boards quite well, even beating them in the CPU Multimedia benchmarks. The A7A266 definitely offers the best bang for the buck due to the fact that it supports both DDR and SDRAM memory types on one board. This makes the upgrade trail much more easy to swallow for those hesitant about making the jump to more expensive DDR. Not to be left out of the "extra features" department, the Iwill KA266-R seeks to make their already appealing ALi Magik1 board a must have buy by including an onboard AMI RAID controller.
The Iwill board was pretty impressive in its performance scores and was a decent overclocker. The KA266-R brings with it a means to adjust the Athlon core clock, voltage, and FSB - a definite slam dunk for the enthusiast. The Iwill offering is a close second behind the A7A266, leaving the Transcend TS-ALR4 struggling to stay afloat.
Well, you know how these things go. There always has to be a loser, or least desirable product out of the bunch. In this case, the TS-ALR4 is the whipping boy. The TS-ALR4 was at the bottom of the curve in the benchmarks, offered poor stability, was a bit troublesome to install, lacked voltage adjustments for the CPU core, and continuously crashed. It refused to boot for the duration of our time testing it. Put simply, we cannot recommend this board to anyone and look ourselves in the mirror the next morning.


sz