DDR mobo price/performance ratio

[Ronzo]

I've never had a new car and can't afford computer machismo.
I'm keeping 3 computers (mine and my kids') as reasonably up to date as I can afford. Price/performance level is very important to me. So when shooting towards the latest/greatest I dump most bells and whistles in favor of the basic technology. So...my next purchase looks like the Shuttle AK31. Second opinions?

 

[girish]

there are many - the upcoming nVidia nForce, the already available SiS735 and VIA KT266. but the most I would recommend is the ALi Magik1 based Asus A7A266.

it has the most mileage and will last too long after the Palomino and Thoroughbreds are out. It supports PC133SDRAM as well as PC2100 DDR-SDRAM, so you could start with SDRAM and later on upgrade it to DDR. its overclocking friendly too just as all Asus boards are.

but if you are on a real budget you could go for otehr options based on these chipsets from other vendors.

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

 

[Ronzo]

Anand's weekly pricing report on motherboards shows a $45 difference between the best prices for the ASUS A7A266 and the Shuttle AK31. $45 is a lot of money to me. This SIS 735 boards sound good and are priced well but I would not throw my cash at the only two companies that have boards available with this chipset so far. There's always something better that's coming along but it sure seems that with motherboards especially that new products come with an unsuitable BIOS that needs to be upgraded or certain incompatibilities. I like to tweak, but I don't like to suffer.

 

[girish]

well, pricewatch says $90 for Shuttle AK31 and $138 for actually thats almost $50, but you do have an option of the Soyo SY-K7ADA Magik board thats listed for $112, I hope $20 is not too much of a difference that the Soyo board is rated well by a review at Anandtech, but it only supports DDR memory.

the shuttle AK31 board uses the VIA chipsets and as I said in some of my earlier posts they have a VIA 686A/B southbridge, the chip that controls the hard drives and other peripherals, is not very highly rated, poor performance and a host of problems and incompatibilities. I'd rather stay away from it, whereas ALi has no problems reported so far the chipset is around for more than half a year now.

the 735 boards are priced too well, but i agree that the two companies making them are not the ones I'd put money on. those might be good products but they arent sampled in detail yet.

in this event I would suggest you to wait for a while, till more 735 boards arrive, or the nForce boards are launched. you will have more options.

girish

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

 

[zengeos]

I too agree with Girish...

Either the SiS 735 based boards running in the $60-$70 range OR the ALi Magick based boards. I'm not sure of the pricing for ALi Magick based boards, AND with ALi Magick, you need to be certain to get the Rev B0 chipset on your board, NOT the A0.
just recently shipped and is replacing A0. Apparently, this latest/new Rev of the chipset offers significantly improved performance..on par and sometimes exceeding the SiS 735!

Both of these chipsets tend to be found in lower priced boards, BUT they both offer the best performance out of the box currently.

nForce is out of the budget price range, being $150 + most likely, when boards start shipping.

M ark-

When all else fails, throw your computer out the window!!!

 

[girish]

well, I am too looking forward to a Asus A7A266 with a Magik B0 chip, and I know they will be here in India after the world has already got them. :-(

do you know any boards that have this B0 rev of Magik?

girish

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

 

[zengeos]

Check out the MB XBiteLabs tested in their Socket A chipset comparison last week.

BTW I was in Sikkim and West Bengal (Darjeeling)last fall....I didn't realize you wre from India yourself!

Mark-

When all else fails, throw your computer out the window!!!