ABIT vs. ASUS

[Guest]

I am planning on building a new computer as I am still using my old Celeron 300A and ABIT BH6. The new system will be for home use, surfing, some gaming, and amature digital video editing. I want stability and speed. But I do not plan to overclock. I'd like some advice on KT266A motherboards. Two friends of mine constantly argue over who is best ABIT or ASUS. I'd like to hear any of your opinions. I am leaning towards ABIT because of ATA133. I thought I might also build RAID system to help with system speed and also just for fun. I would not rule out MSI, Soltek, or Soyo. I don't know jack about IWILL. Any suggestions or comments on the tentative system below would also be appreciated. Thanks.

ABIT KR7A-RAID
Athlon XP 1700+ or 1800+
512MB Corsair CAS 222 (is this better than Crucial or Mushkin?)
2 X Maxtor 40GB 7200 RPM ATA133 (in RAID 0)
Plextor CDRW (16 or 24X)
Soundblaster Live Value (from old PC)
Either Lian-Li PC-60USB or my old PCNut Case (mid tower ATX)
Either Sparkle/Enermax 350W or greater power supply.
Jury is out on video card either Radeon 8500DV or Geforce3 with separate firewire card.
Plan to use Windows XP.
Thanks in advance for you suggestions.



<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Meshugana on 01/17/02 11:00 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[svol]

I always use to buy ASUS, but last year I bought an Abit KG7 vbecause there were only crappy ASUS boards out there and it ROCKS!!! I like Abit more then ASUS now.

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground .

 

[Guest]

I have three systems that are based on this Motherboard. Two of them are fine but the third one is configured as a server with mirrored hard drives. This doesn't work on the Seagate Barrracuda ATA IV's (80GB) that I'm trying to mirror. As soon as you mirror the drives and install any software the system becomes inoperable. I love the single drive system I have and the RAID 0 system, they work great and are very fast. The other, well, I'm still waiting on a response from ABIT...

 

[Guest]

thanks for your reply. Any ideas on if the ASUS is more stable. I saw somewhere that ABIT is known for frequents RMA's.
Thanks.

 

[upec]

I have two Abit and three Asus boards. I did not have any problem with them.

 

[svol]

I rea somewhere that the Barracuda ATA IV are not good for RAID setups, but I have 2 ATA IV in a RAID 0 setup and it works good. Maybe new firmware for the HD will work, but I don't know where to get that.

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground .

 

[pr497]

both boards are good...but i think ABIT is an "overclocking" motherboard...meaning if you're an over clocker...ABIT is the board to get.
i personally have 1 asus board and 1 abit board...both boards are great.
i cant really tell you what board is better...
but if you still dont know what board to get...just get the one thats cheaper (pricewise of course).
and about the ram...crucial is better than cosair...so get crucial ram.
about the case....get the Lian-li....not not your old case...
the 350W power supply is good (other people might tell you to get a 400W or higher...but thats only if you have a lot of crap in your system and if you're going to be doing any overclocking...but in your case....even a 300W will do).
vid card: id say get the R8500DV...i hear its great for video stuff...
nuff said for me...

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2096468" target="_new">P4 + SDRAM</A> = <b>BAD</b>

 

[Guest]

Yeah, my RAID 0 (20GB Drives) setup works great, no issues. I even have an ATA IV that replaced a failed IBM Deskstar 75GXP in a RAID 1 array at our other site and it works fine in that setup. It's just the RAID 1 setup that appears to be problematic. It's interesting to note that we just threw an older Promise FastTrak 66 RAID controller into the system, mirrored the drives, and can't get WinNT 4.0 Server to install. It locks up. I was thinking this was a controller issue until now but the finger is really starting to point at the drives themselves.

 

[Guest]

Meshugana,
I also have many systems (20+) here at work based on ASUS boards (P2B, P3BF, CUBX, CUSL2, etc..). These systems are all stable and dependable. All of my Asus systems use Intel CPU's, so no info from me on Asus/AMD combos. I converted to ABIT recently as I've seen several of their boards that impressed me better than Asus. I really view the two as the top two Mobo manufacturers and would use a board from either manufacturer depending on the application.

 

[Guest]

amd has not approved any abit motherboards for the xp1500-xp2000 only asus a7v266-e
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_182_869_4348^4378|115_1_XP,00.html

martin

 

[svol]

Yes I think it are the drives, the ATA III are much better but hard to find around here so I bought to cheap 20 GB ATA IV for my RAID setup. Somebody on the forum told someone that the IV suck in RAID setups and that new firmware for the drives probably would help, but I have no idea where to get that firmware.

My case has so many fans that it hovers above the ground .