Which board is best?

[bairdjc]

I am planning on upgrading to an Athlon 1.4 Ghz FSB 266 - but I am at a loss as to which motherboard to choose. I have a few questions. I am confused - some boards mention they support PC133 SDRAM - but if it's a 266 FSB, how can this be? Or is the "DDR" implied (2*133=266)? If so, why do some specify PC2100? If these are 2 different memories, are there any significant performance differences that would give one an edge over the other? This is what I would like: 1 AGP (4x), 5 PCI, 1 ISA, ATA100, Slot/Socket doesn't matter, and at least 2 RAM slots, and NO SOUND. It seems you can't buy a motherboard that doesn't have built in sound or video! Any suggestions anyone? Any comments would be very helpful. Thanks.

 

[girish]

DDR does imply 2x SDR performance. but both SDR and DDR are different memory technologies, and have different specs. the SDR sits in a 168 pin socket while DDR has a 184 pin socket. PC66, PC100, PC133 etc are specs indicating the bus speed in MHz. now the PC1600, PC2100 are specs showing the max data transfer rate. that is, for a 133MHz DDR with a 64 bit bus the transfer rate is 133M (Bus speed) x 2 (thats DDR) x 8 (byte width of the bus) = 2128 MB/sec, approx 2.1GB/sec. similarly, DDR memory running at 100 Mhz (200 DDR) will give 1.6 GB/sec and that makes it a PC1600 memory.

as for the board to suit all your requirements, well, thats tough. but since you are interested in DDR, i would like to suggest the Asus A7A266 board. its stable, doeas have AGP and PCI slots, and can work with both SDR and DDR RAMS - it has 3 slots for SDR and 2 for DDR.
but it has one more unique feature, its the only board i have seen with a real sound chip, when everybody has a not so good AC97 winaudio. it has a CMedia 4378 chip with 4 channel audio support. you might want to consider this if you are keen on not going for AC97. as for ISA, forget it since no new board will have a ISA slot, at least the most of them which will narrow down your range of choice largely. because PC99 spec says the board SHOULD NOT have any legacy ISA slot to qualify for PC99 standard.

girish

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

 

[Crashman]

The AMD 266/Intel 400 FSB LIE:
AMD uses an FSB of 100 or 133, not 200 or 266. But 2 bits transfer per cycle to the CHIPSET ONLY. This gives the performance of a 266FSB on an actual 133 FSB, a.k.a. 266DDR.
Intel picked up on this scam with the P4 and transfers 4 bits per cycle, with the 100FSB that is 400QDR.

Rambus came out with some high speed memory operating at 8 bit, 800MHz. They called it PC800, becuase it ran 800MHz. But because it uses such a narrow bus path, it is not really 8 times as fast as PC100, more like twice as fast. So they use them in pairs to make it 4 times as fast, matching the theoretical maximum bandwidth of Intel's P4.

So when DDR was released with almost the same bandwidth, but at only 133x2, instead of folowing AMD's lead and calling it PC266, they decided a "bigger" sounding number was in order. So they instead labled it by it's TRANSFER RATE, ~2100 BITS per second, or PC2100. It still runs at 133x2, or 266DDR, the same as the newer AMD chips, making it a perfect match with the proper chipset.

Now that we have that figured out;
I recommend the Asus A7A266 motherboard. It supports either DDR or SDR ram, depending on which bank of sockets you use (it has a bank for each). It has none of the historical problems that plague VIA chipsets, because it uses a new chipset from ALi instead. It is proven reliable and compatable with all PCI devices. Use BIOS 1.004 if it is not already on the board when you buy it. It does include sound, but FORGET IT'S THERE! Disable it in bios, because the sound codec is so cheap, it's almost free, so if you don't want it, don't use it. Oh, and forget ISA, it is no longer used on current boards. If you wanted it for a modem, get a PCI or USB modem instead.


Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[Crashman]

Ammended-I just found the A7A266 WITHOUT audio for $133 on pricewatch.com, there, no audio, now quit complaining.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[girish]

the C-Media chip on the A7A266 is a hardware audio chip alright, no crappy softaudio/winaudio/codecs.

i think its quite okay for cheap but reasonable quality audio. i have a cheap sound card based on this chip, and performs quite well, with 4 channel, SPDIF, 3D positoinal audio support.

checkout its tech details at <A HREF="http://www.cmedia.com.tw/doc8738.htm" target="_new">http://www.cmedia.com.tw/doc8738.htm</A>. if you dont want it, disable it and forget it. after all a difference of a couple of dolars is not much to worry about. it might serve you as a stand-by audio option as well.

girish

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

 

[khha4113]

This is what I would like: 1 AGP (4x), 5 PCI, 1 ISA, ATA100, Slot/Socket doesn't matter, and at least 2 RAM slots, and NO SOUND. It seems you can't buy a motherboard that doesn't have built in sound or video!

There is Abit KT7A series (it has 6 PCI slots). BTW, all mobos that have audio-on-board can disable it easily in BIOS, so sound or no sound doesn't matter at all.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[bairdjc]

So the most recommended board would be the ASUS A7A266? what about memory performance? PC133 or PC2100? Thanks again all,

 

[Crashman]

I recommend Crucial DDR. Expect to see 2-3% lower benchmark numbers than motherboards with the AMD761/VIA686B combination, but with none of the problems asociated with that VIA southbridge. The A7A266's stability and compatability are unmatched by Athlon boards with any other chipset, which I believe is worth the 2-3% performance difference (you can't see 2-3% anyway!).

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[agpport]

If you want PC133 (cant see why though) then Abit KT7A is really good.

Also I´ve heard good things of the Iwill KA266 (for PC2100, ALi chipset.)

Does anyone know if Iwill has a board with AMD 760?

I recommend Crucial or Mushkin DDR.

 

[marabob]

What are the problems with the 686B south bridge?

When it hits the fan, it make a mess.

 

[Crashman]

First, there's the IRQ sharing problem that all VIA chipsets have. The more cards you add, the less likey you are to have a usable system. Then there's incompatability with several cards and some USB devices, again a VIA problem that affects multiple chipsets. Then there's the data coruption thing. I have seen it on other VIA chipsets, but it is most notorious on the 686B southbridge. It also has a problem running some IDE devices at the proper speed, most notoriously disabling DMA on certain CD devices (such as DVD players). It also has a certain amount of lag that can disrupt certain programs (causing "unknown" errors). Etc. etc., the whole VIA legacy continues. Some people are lucky, some aren't, the ones who are lucky enough to have a system that runs perfectly try to make idiots out of the unlucky ones, but it is really a matter of chance and configuration.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine