Epox 8KHA+ or 8KHAL?

[Faceman]

Can anyone tell me which I should go for, the Epox 8KHA+ or the 8KHAL? I've heard good and bad things about each - I'm basically going to be using an AMD Athlon XP 1600, 256mb PC2100 DDR RAM, GeForce 3 Ti-200 graphics card and Sound Blaster Audigy sound card. I may overclock the CPU as well, but I'm not sure. I've heard people recommend other boards, but someone else always comes and says "no that one's crappy, get this one" or they're too expensive. The Epox 8KHA+ and 8KHAL are in my price range and have probably had the least backlash from people (apart from the fact it's based on the VIA chipset).

 

[endless_n00b]

I am in the same boat, considering both. The 8KHAL looks the same as the ever popular 8KHA+ except it has 5 PCI slots not 6 (no big deal for most), and doesn't have the onboard debug card. Its also about 20 bucks cheaper.

You probably already read them, but the THG "14 motherboard roundup" reviews the 8KHA+ and so does a review at Anandtech

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1578&p=1

Both rate it pretty well, just THG had some comments on OCing.

I tend to think the 8KHAL is the best value in a KT266A chipset (assuming its as stable as its cousin), the only thing cheaper are the ECS boards which is a love/hate type relationship you can read about in another thread on this board.

then again I dont own either of them so what the hell do I know, lol! This is based on what I've read from people a lot smarter than me. I can tell you a lot of people own the 8KHA+ and the overall opinion has been very good. Now I wish I could find some people that have the 8KHAL and tell me if its the same quality.

I don't know if this helps, hope it does. At the very least I gave you a "bump" =)


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[Guest]

According to Epox (http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8kha+.htm), here's what I can tell from the specs:

- The 8KHAL is missing 1 PCI slot (as mentioned)
- The 8KHAL has 2 onboard USB ports instead of 4(although both boardscan have up to six)
- The 8KHAL is 305mm x 200mm ATX instead of 305mm x 245mm ATX

The picture shows the 8KHAL missing a fan and has stuff aranged slightly differently. But then it say the product may be different, so who knows? Also, it appears that the 8KHAL still has jumpers, while the 8KHA+ does them mostly in software. Can someone with these boards clarify?