VIA OR ALI ?

[Guest]

For an Athlon T-Bird 1.33 GHz with 512 MB DDR RAM

Which MB will be the most reliable/stable (not necessarily best performanace) and least headaches (flashing BIOS, overheating, etc.) I will not be overclocking. (Prices are CDN so don't tell me to go to pricewatch.com

1) MSI (6380) K7T266 Pro (Socket A, Via, 5-PCI, AGP-4X, 3 DDR, ATA-100) 239.84

2) ASUS A7A266 (Socket A, ALI, 5-PCI, AGP-4X, 2 DDR, 3 DIMM, ATA-100) 219.97

 

[Crashman]

The A7A266 works almost perfectly with BIOS revision 1.004 and ALi's newest AGP driver. After those two upgrades you should be set for a long time to come.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[girish]

go for Ali, A7A266

<font color=blue>die-hard fans don't have heat-sinks!</font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

Personally I would go with the VIA. I have not had a single problem with a VIA based board. They perform well and the price is usually not that bad. However, I had alot of trouble with the ALi chipsets (especially the ALi Aladdin 5 and mobile chipsets). Numerous incompatabilities and system instability were among the most anoying problems faced. I have not however, checked out the new ALi MAGiK1 chipset yet.

Good luck.

Tahoma

 

[Guest]

I would also suggest the FIC AD-11 ATX Socket A motherboard. It has an AMD 761 chipset. It only has two PC2100 slots though. PC2100 is the DDR RAM.

Tahoma

 

[dan_gao86]

if i were you, i'd most probably consider either the MSI K7 Master with AMD 761 chipset or the A7A266...
i'm planning to get 1 of these, but still haven't decided which to get

I WoNdEr HoW, I WoNdEr WhY, I WoNdEr WhErE ThEy ArE, ThE AMD... We OvErCloCked ToGeThEr, Oh YeAh...

 

[Ncogneto]

Reports over at AMD zone have the MSI outperforming the Asus. However, the MSI is very particular and has a very high RMA rate while the ASUS is much less finicky and easier to set up. Once setup the MSI is very fast and very stable, however, if you go the MSI route be prepared to spend much more time in setting it up.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!