Asus or Abit, who's got the better board?

[vidar]

Im trying to choose a motherboard for my AthlonXP 1800+ CPU, the Abit KR7A-133 or the Asus A7V333. Has anyone tried either of these? Comments?, opinions?

 

[sniper226]

I have been a long user of Abit. But the powerup problems I have on 2 different pcs are no longer bearable:

1) PC if it loses power, must replug power cord in several times before you can get the power switch to work.
2) PC will not boot on first power on, have to hold power switch down, power up again, then it's fine.

Not to mention the melted capacitor a friend of mine had with Abit board. On top of that, their web site sucks.

So now I have the Asus A7V333 and I am very happy again. The wife and kids get the Abits... :^)

 

[FatBurger]

I've heard nothing but good things about the KR7a, and I'm partial to Abit myself.
Asus is very popular, I just haven't heard any reports of how good the A7V333 is.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

 

[sniper226]

I have the A7V333. Very happy. First AMD chip I have used.

AMD 1900+
GF 3 Ti 500 video
Corsair DDR333 CL 2
WD 100 GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache drive

All keeps me happy!

I was once lost but now I am found.

 

[simactive]

i prefer the ASUS motherboards becuase they offer better quilaty, but on the other hand the Abits are also good. It is on personal pref. you could overclock the A7V333's FSB over 142Mhz :O.... yeah well Abit here http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q4/011126/kt266a_nforce-01.html it compaires the KT-266a with KT-266 and nVidia Nforce. http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/02q1/020220/kt333-07.html here you can read about it 2. U might have already, think about you u mostly want to do with the pc and choose by that and which has better components ect.... Alright then you can choose by price ect ect ect. ok i/m done
Asus is the best company for me =) but it's all about personal pref.
Asus will be surpreme!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by simactive on 04/09/02 12:42 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[FatBurger]

I've seen the KR7a and Iwill XP333 both OC above a 180MHz FSB however.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

 

[RDBRUSKI]

2 of my friends and myself got the A7V333 non-RAID boards. So far, only 1 of my friends has installed the board.

He installed his retail heatsink on his XP 1800+ and his PC kept shutting off after only 2-4 seconds. He tried all sorts of settings and turned it off and on about 25 times! Well, come to find out he had the heatsink was on wrong!

What was happening, is that the C.O.P. feature of the A7V333 board saved his CPU from burning out ALL 25 times! That was enough to convince me that we got a good mobo.

 

[FatBurger]

Good stuff, but I doubt it would save it if the heatsink was completely off. I don't recommend you find out for sure, of course.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

 

[vidar]

the auto shutdown feature(COP) is what caught my eye about the asus A7V333 mobo, its just nice to know that if your fan shuts down your CPU wont be fried.
I think i'll go for the A7V333, thanks for the input people!

 

[AMD_Man]

Good stuff, but I doubt it would save it if the heatsink was completely off. I don't recommend you find out for sure, of course.

The Asus A7V333 gets its temperature readings directly from the thermal diode on the AXP. It should be responsive enough to shut down in time.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor

 

[FatBurger]

I'm not so sure, but you could be right.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

 

[BGates2B]

I own an Abit KR7A-133R, what an awesome board. It is also my first Abit board. I used to use exclusively Asus but I got burned by them twice (once, a bad voltage reg on a P2B, the other was the dreaded (shudders) P3C2000 board (Intel i820 with MTH)). I switched from Asus to a short stint with MSI, but had problems with two of their boards too (K7T-Pro 2A with as many problems as IBM Deskstar 75's according to some forums; and a K7T-Turbo).

I would recommend the Abit board. Sure, the thermal protection is nice but you can also set up motherboard monitor to do the same thing.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=87962" target="_new">My Rigs </A>

 

[Groundhogster]

What abit boards did you have problems with? Mt BE6 had a similar problem. I had to power it on by inserting the power on cable that goes from the case to the motherboard and as soon as it powered on pulling it back out. If I left the cable plugged in it would power back off again. Just last week though it worked again and I can power on my computer using the power button on the case. Very strange.

Are you the friend who works on computers?

 

[BGates2B]

Sniper, I heard of your problem before; usually occurs with motherboards using processors released after the chipset design. For example, I understand that this happens with people running Athlon XP's on machines with KT-133A chipsets; the board may support the XP but the chipset wasn't designed.

What happens is that the PSU cannot charge the rails enough to get the board going. I common remedy is to hold the reset button for several seconds when powering up, this holds the board from boot-up long enough to allow the PSU rails to charge. It is not a motherboard problem, it is remedied by getting a better quality or stronger PSU

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=87962" target="_new">My Rigs </A>

 

[spoondigity]

What he said. :] Oh, and I think you may want to recombopulate the flux capacitor.

 

[FatBurger]

No, the flux capacitor is fine. It's just not getting enough power, it needs 1.21 jiggawatts.

<font color=blue>If you don't buy Windows, then the terrorists have already won!</font color=blue> - Microsoft

 

[BGates2B]

Or if you can get your PC up to 88 MPH. I think I can do that if I toss it out the 40th story window.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=87962" target="_new">My Rigs </A>

 

[sniper226]

It is the BE6, IIRC. It was working fine for a couple of years. Have PIII 500MHZ. Just recently all kinds of strangeness happened where it said it was putting disk in DOS compatibility mode and CD stopped working etc. Thats when the power on strangeness happened. You would think at least the bios would post though.

That is when I waited (and waited) for the A7V333 to come out so I could get away from Abit and reload the old Abit from scratch.