is a kt266a chipset still a good purchase?

[Guest]

will a KT266a chipset with 256DDR PC2100 ram(upraded to 512 next paycheck) serve an athlon XP2000+ and a ATI radion8500 well or should i just wait and get a KT333 with PC2700 ram?
i looked at the benchmarks off this sight and i saw almost no differences between the two. ill look for the article and post a link.

P.S whats the deal with using WINXP with ATI Radion8500? the benchmarks off this sight made if look like these components did not work together at all, and a Gforce2 ultra was sometimes faster. a board user told me that they worked fine together and i wouldnt be loosing performance. any help on this issue would be appreciated.
-thanks

http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q4/011107/radeon-03.html link to the benchmarks of ATI R8500 with winXP<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by dragoonpilot on 03/14/02 04:04 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jlanka]

is a kt266a chipset still a good purchase?

Yes. I'd do it.

<i>It's always the one thing you never suspected.</i>

 

[FatBurger]

Yes, a KT266a is still a good buy. Epox, Soyo, Soltek, Abit, Asus and MSI all have good KT266a boards.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>
Don't step in the sarcasm!

 

[korokok]

Hello to all, just want to add a question to this thread.
I have an ABIT KR7A (without raid) motherboard and I'm using 256 MB PC2100. Can I use a PC2700 instead? Would there be an increase in performance if I use PC2700 instead of PC2100? Do I need to manually configure the BIOS setting in order the PC2700 to work.

Thanks!

 

[Jablumen]

Of course, the reviews of the KT333 boards have yet to point out any real downside as compared to the KT266A, unless you're dead set against ever buying anything at Ver. 1.0. There's something to be said for that theory in most cases, but the KT333 is really only a very minor tweak to the KT266A, so the risk of major issues with the board is not as great as when adding a significant new techology such as DDR Ram. It's performance has been consistently rated as just a tad better than the older boards and reports of relative stability and ease of setup have been right on.

I just received my Gigabyte 7VRXP yesterday, set it up last night and am writing this note on it now. Not a single crash so far in about 5 or 6 hours of use. Nice features, too -- 4xUSB 2.0 and 4xUSB 1.1, ATA133 (big deal), Promise PDC20276 Raid controller that also allows use of IDE 3 and 4 as ATA133 hard drive controllers if you don't want RAID. I have mine set up as Raid 0 w/2 45 Gig IBM Deskstars at 7200 ATA 100. It seems plenty fast for my taste and gives me 90 Gig to luxuriate in for my main working drive.

I guess my point is, that you don't get much more with the KT333, but you do get some more than most KT266A boards offer with no price premium (My board was $138 at NewEgg) and not much risk.

Now if you can wait until summer, VIA is supposed to come out with their KT400, which will add even a few more bells and whistles. I needed a new board now, however, and for me KT333 makes sense.

The ASUS board (A7V333 -- which you couldn't really find when I was looking) looks particularly nice, with an on-board sensor that protects the processor from overheating.

It's worked for me so far.

John

Ain't this fun!

 

[pvsurfer]

John~ Which case are you using with your GA-7VRXP? Just wondering how well it accomodates all those ports on the Gigabyte.

<b>God bless the <font color=red>U</font color=red><font color=white>S</font color=white><font color=blue>A</font color=blue></b>

 

[Guest]

why not get a kt333 board? they don't look that much more expensive than the 266a boards. (well except for the asus a7v333 is expensive). i may be wrong, but i was under the impression that the kt333 had a lot of bug fixes in it also. like it's really just a "kt266b" with a few new features.

 

[Jablumen]

Antec SX830 upgraded to a 400 watt Antec PSU. The stock plate on the back accommodates all the ports including the network port.

Ain't this fun!

 

[girish]

KT266A is good, why waste money in KT333 when the 266A can be scaled to 333 as wellas higher?

But i'd suggest you the Iwill XP333/R with the magik rev C, almost at par with the 266A, and one of the best overclockable board. almost all the reviews done with 333 and 400 MHz FSB were done on this!

girish

<font color=red>Nothing is fool-proof. Fools are Ingenious!</font color=red>

 

[FatBurger]

No, you will not see any difference with PC2700.

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>
Don't step in the sarcasm!