Motherboard Recommendation?

[Guest]

Hello Group,

I have been waiting for the Asus A7V333 to come out..That is, until now. I just read another thread that quoted a review of the board that noted the RAM Voltage isn't adjustable. This has me concerned.

I am looking at handing my K6-2/350 to the kids and putting together an Athlon-XP1800 system. I am not a gamer, mostly business apps, Internet, and *occasionally* play with graphics/videos. I am not opposed to overclocking, but stability is more important to me.

Not being able to adjust the RAM voltage on the ASUS has me wondering if I should look to another board. I want to have a nice/quick board (as you can tell, I don't upgrade often). I have always been a fan of ASUS, so am uncertain of other boards. Also, from the reading I have done, it seems that the Via K333 chipset is the one to go with?

Anyone have any suggestions as to sticking with the ASUS when it's available or something else?

Thanks for your valued input,

Tim

 

[lhgpoobaa]

i personally think that the current crop of new kt333 chipsets are a waste at the moment.

DDR333 is considerably more expensive than standard DDR266, and its hard to find DDR333 that will run reliably at hard memory timings. i.e. cas2.

at the moment, probably your best bet is to go for a kt266a chipset such as the soltec.

you will save money on the ram, yet you will still get performance to within a couple of percentage points of a kt333 board.

and really, anything under 10-15% really isnt noticable in day to day operation.

also, there are a far larger number of kt266a chipsets to choose from. check out toms archives for a comparison.

p.s. the reason why the new chipsets and ram dont offer much performance bonus is that the ram and the system bus are running asychronously. 266 for the fsb, 333 for the ram.
real performance improvments are only obtainable if you unlock your XP cpu and run the FSB at 333 as well.

Toms Forums. Destroying my sanity
one braincell at a time.

 

[girish]

I agree with poobaa. KT333 is a real waste, perhaps thats why VIA is skipping their second shot chipset KT333A and heading straight for KT400.

KT266A is a much better choice for the reasons poobaa mentioned, and you can easily overclock the KT266A to get 166 MHz frequency so that you run all your parts in DDR333 spec.

The Asus A7V266-E is a good choice for that. In fact, Iwill XP333/R is a much better choice for DDR333 since it has a superior chipset and officially validated for 166 MHz operation.

girish

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