Stable Athlon Motherboard with DDR support??

[Guest]

I am planning on purchasing an Athlon 1.3GHz soon and I want to get a motherboard that uses PC2100 DDR Ram. However I have heard that there tends to be alot of instability in chipsets/motherboards for Athlon processors.

I would like to get some feedback about what is the most stable Athlon board with DDR memory support? I don't have any current plans for overclocking so that isn't really a concern. I am leaning towards the AMD 761 chipset beacuse of it's performance edge.

Thanks for your help!

 

[SERVO]

The MSI K7-Master is a proven stable DDR MB

 

[o1die]

I saved money and got an Fic ADll for only $105. My athlon 1.2 runs stable at 1.33 simply by changing the dip switch from 9 to 10. I got it to run stable at 1380, but the stock AMD fan runs too hot at that speed. Tom's hardware just reviewed it along with 2 other budget boards. If you don't like building systems like I do, you can find any number of generic configurations in Pricewatch under Pc Windows for alot less than some name brands. Or you can wait for the sis chipset, which could start showing up in about 1-2 months.

 

[dan_gao86]

perhaps you'd want to consider the asus a7a266 board, which runs on the ali magik chipset...
it don't have a via southbridge like the amd 761, which to me, is quite gd...

the ali magik 1 chipset is much more stable than the amd 761, but it loses abt 5% performance, which is really very much negligible...
but if by no means you really reallye want to have an amd 761 board, you should go grab the MSI K7 Master...
Tom had used the K7 master in his powerbox i think

go to <A HREF="http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q2/010509/index.html" target="_new">http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q2/010509/index.html</A> for tom's review on the ali magik boards...
the article is already quite old, so most of the problems he stated there are already solved with new bios...

btw, if you're not in a hurry, perhaps you could wait some time for the sis chipset and the nforce


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

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your input guys! I will have to take a look at the MSI K7-Master, I know I've read a review of it before but I can't remember what it said! =)

Is the stability of the Ali magik 1 chipset superior than the stability of the Epox 8K7A+ (which uses AMD 760) which Tom recently reviewed and said was a stable board? Has any one had any stability issues with the Epox or the Ali chipset?

Thanks!

 

[dmcmahon]

I've heard that the 760 chipset is the best performer, and is the most stable. Avoid the VIA 686B southbridge and it's bugs, though (a lot of 760-based boards don't use AMD's southbridge). I personally would wait a month or two for the nForce boards.