Asus a7a266 v. am266 v. a7v133

[Guest]

it is my understanding that the a7m266 is faster than the a7a266, and the a7a266 is faster than the a7v133. Why do i rarely see anything on the a7m266 and always see people using the a7v133. What is the best, and whats faster etc.

I have already order a a7m266 for me tbird 1.2 ghz, but am now just curious.

 

[lamer_gamer]

The A7M266 and A7V133 both use the Via 686 southbridge which is known to be a bit buggy with certain hardware configurations. As far as speed difference between those two, I'm not sure which is faster. One difference between those two is that the A7M uses an AMD northbridge, and the A7V133 uses a Via northbridge (don't remember which ones off the top of my head). Also, there are a couple of different versions of the A7V133; one that has a 200mhz fsb, and one that uses a 266mhz fsb (I think the 266 one is the A7V133a). I think that the A7V133 boards are less expensive (and maybe easier to find?) and that <i>might</i> be why more people purchase those mobos. The A7A266 board uses the ALi MaGiK 1 chipset and in benchmarks shows a 2-4% deficit in speed compared to the boards using the Via chipsets. However, to date, there has not been any hardware compatibility issues reported with this board (well, I had a compatibility issue with this board; I forgot to install the agp drivers- doh!). I personally went with the A7A specifically because I didn't want to deal with the Via issues. Good luck!

My brain has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down

 

[bungee]

I beleive that you have done a good choice with your A7M266 because your northbridge makes overall performance better than the two others. However, this board is clearly more difficult to find than the two others. I think that because DDR was much more expensive than PC133 for not a lot more performance, that maked A7V133 sold a lot. But today, the difference between DDR and PC133 in price is minimal and I suppose that A7V133 will be much less sold.

 

[Tempus]

Yes, you are right about the order of speed. Both the A7M and A7A run using DDR, whilst the A7V uses SDR SDRAM. The A7M was designed with the AMD760 chipset, and the A7A uses Ali's Magik1 chipset. The A7V uses VIA's KT133A chipset.

If you look at benchmarks, you will see that the A7M significantly surpasses the A7A performance wise. However, although the A7A uses DDR memory, and the A7V uses SDR, the A7A has an almost negligable performance advantage over the A7V.

In other words, it is not worth it to get the A7A over the A7V. If you are going the DDR route, you definatley want to go A7M, as you did. However, both the new SiS chipset (utilizing only one chip for north and south bridge), or nVidia's nForce chipset make the situation even more interesting. But that's a whole other story...

- Tempus fugit donec vestrum relictus tripudium. Autem amor praeterea magis pretium.

 

[Crashman]

The A7A can use either DDR or SDR memory. Test that show it to be about the same speed as the A7V are testing it with SDR. SDR negates the reason for getting a DDR capable board. And the A7A266 is almost as fast as the A7M when equiped with DDR.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[girish]

thats the advantage of A7A266. if you are on a budget, get a A7A266, start with SDR and you can upgrade it with DDR anytime later without any hassles of format/install cycles. and it isnt too costlier than the A7V133. the advantage of it being most stable, perhaps more than the AMD760 makes up for the slight performance lag. and the latest news is that ALi has come out with Ali Magik chipset rev B0, that is supposed remove the memory latency troubles that impeded its performace. I guess it will move the chipset above the 760.

btw, A7V used the KT133 (200 MHz FSB) with 686A southbridge supporting ATA/66 IDE speed, while the A7V133 used the KT133A (suppoting 266 MHz FSB) alongwith the 686B southbridge supporting ATA/100 IDE transfer speeds.

girish

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

 

[Guest]

Thanks for all the help. I think i made the right decision then. I should be getting it in a couple of days and I am siked. I also got a swiftech mc462 and arctic silver II. I am not sure if i am going to overclock it yet because from what I have seen it is tough on this mobo. If i do decide to is it the same as the asus a7v133 mobo that tom modified for overclocking/ if not what do i neeed to do to adjust the clock multiplier? thanks.

 

[Crashman]

Yes, well, it will make do with PC133, but benchmarking it in that configuration gives you no idea of it's true potential.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

 

[girish]

this flexibility itself is its advantage. i am planning to get the A7A266 with 128/256 MB of Sdram, DDRs right now in India are too costly (about 4 times that of SDR) so I would buy DDR when they become cheap.

plus A7A is the only board with hardware audio chip onboard and not the crappy AC97.

I am waiting for the A7A with B0 rev of Magik, its supposed to improve the performance, especially that memory latency so that it could well match the 760.

girish

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