Asus, Gigabyte, or Epox??

[Kaliman]

i am planning to upgrade my system (new KT333 mobo, tbred, corsair pc 3000 or pc 3200 ram) and am completely lost as to which motherboard to purchase. All the reviews say different things and everyone seems to have a different opinion. Asus boards have been my favorite but ever since i saw Tom's review and some various opinions i have been swayed to epox or gigabyte. Now i've read other reviews on the asus a7v333 board and it seems that it comes out on top in every one, granted the fsb is 135 but the overclocking potential seems to be able to reach 200 mhz stable. Unfortunately Tom's review is anything but detailed and really told me absolute crap about each motherboard, the only reason i use this site now is for the message boards.

Then there's the epox which seems to be getting good reviews and a good following behind it, but then again i've heard some not so good things about that board too. The gigabyte is the one that Tom recommended but the performance of it does not seem that well considering so many people have been having problems with it randomly rebooting and locking up.

I just wish there was one motherboard out there that stood out above the rest, all i want is the best VIA KT333 chipset for the tbred and cabable of using corsair pc 3200 cas 2.5 or pc 3000 cas 2 ram. I of course want it to be an excellent overclocker. My current asus a7m266 has left me rather......dissapointed with its overclocking abilities.

Please let me know what you guys think, any opinion at all would be appreciated, thanks.

 

[Kaliman]

wow 27 views and not one reply, here let me simplify it, what motherboard would you get if you could get any motherboard in the world?

 

[phsstpok]

I've been waiting for nForce 2.

As for KT333, I haven't heard any complaints about Epox 8K3A+ except no onboard USB 2.0. This is no big deal because USB 2.0 PCI cards are like $20 and USB 2.0/Firewire combo cards are around $50.

<b>I have so many cookies I now have a FAT problem!</b>

 

[psyclone]

1. Gigabyte - Nothing but problems dont get it.
2. Asus - Havent read much about it, but it seems to get the job done and has a good feature set.
3. Epox - Good performance, decent stability, good cheap alternative especially if you dont want raid on-board.

<b>This is an exceptionally bas sig!</b>

 

[Kaliman]

now you're citing epox as an alternative. What would you get if not the epox board, i'm basically looking for the best VIA KT333 chipset board on the market.

 

[davidlim]

I've been perusing the boards as well, looking for a good KT333 motherboard. From what I've heard, the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU is a very good choice. Another alternative is (as has already been mentioned) the Epox 8K3A+.

Hope that helps.

 

[Kaliman]

haha, funny that you recommended the MSI board, a post was just put up saying that 80% of them fail and this guy is on his 3rd board which just failed. So now i think it's safe to say that the gigabyte and MSI boards suck. Now what's left is epox i guess, unless there's something else worth looking at. Abit maybe??

 

[Kaliman]

uh, just to finish MSI off read this http://www.pcpowerzone.co.uk/reviews.php?id=77&page=6

it seems the epox is probably my best bet, except there have been a few problems i remember reading, i'll try to find them

 

[davidlim]

I read the reviews of the Epox and MSI motherboards at the <A HREF="http://www.pcpowerzone.co.uk/reviews.php?id=69&page=7" target="_new">weblink</A> you provided. Thanks Kaliman, it certainly makes for interesting reading -

OK, so this board is not an overclocker but as a stock-running board it's great, chuck an XP2000+ and some RAID hard drives in there and you have a fast system, only a small percentage of users are overclockers so most of you just have systems running CPU's and FSB speeds as standard

So if you want a good board for overclocking, get the Epox. If you don't want overclocking, but want stability get the MSI.

Odd, from <A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&p=510219#510219" target="_new">this thread</A>, the MSI looked like a very good motherboard.

 

[ironsack]

I have a GA-7VRXP and exept for the fact that there is almost no tech support anywhere for it, it is a great performing board. I have gotten my highest 3dmark scores on this board. There is one thing however, prepare to tweak this board for at least a day or so because it is not just plug and play. You also might want to invest in a active cooler for the northbridge because let me tell you it does get warm. It is so far a great board for the money and that is almost 1/2 the cost of most of the good boards out there. The only one that comes close is the EPOX.

 

[acron1]

Asus board are generaly very good.
I have used two EPoX boards(8hka+ and 8k3a+) and I must say I found them both to be very stable and fast not to mention less expensive than Asus(had several of them and have always been happy with them).
Bottom line: price counts right?
Steve.

Beam me up Scotty.

 

[upec]

I would suggest Asus A7V333.

 

[khha4113]

I tried it, and I wouldn't recommend it if for overclocking (pretty poor).

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

ive got the Epox 8k3a+ couldnt be happier with it.

Super fast, super stable, heaps of overclocking options.

no onboard USB2.0 (oh boo hoo) not! since i dont use it.

the overclocking options were so good i managed to burn out my old tbird! hehehehe

plus it was ALOT cheaper than an asus or MSI... even with onboard raid.

my superlarge MCX-462 cooler fitted perfectly too.

<font color=blue>Pants Down! Turn Around! Bend Over! You're about to Experience Telstra broadband! :lol:

 

[Kaliman]

excellent i think that is the board i will end up purchasing, i have an mcx-462 cooler as well, only thing i don't like about it is that it prevents me from sleeping at night. Now you said you burned your thunderbird, did you really, and how, cause i definitely don't want that happening. The only thing left is to find out if it's compatible with corsair pc3200 memory.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

yep. the board is VERY compatible with corsair XMS3200. use it myself.
(allthough ive found that to use the turbo mem timings ive had to raise the Vdimm by 0.1v... extreemly harsh mem timings indeed!)

and the cpu i 'burnt out' was a Athlon 1200C 'axia'
despite it being an axia, it was never a good overclocker, requiring 1.85v for 1350mhz, or 1.92v for reliable operation at 1400mhz
somewhere between 1400 and 1466 seemed to be the "golden limit" for this particular cpu as i found out. it was factory unlocked, so i tried a number of different speeds, with odd results.
10.5x133=1400 was fine, as was 8.5x166.6=1415mhz. 11x133=1466 always bluescreened before windows, but strangely 9.0x166.6=1500 seemed to work... for a while.
but if i tried prime95 it died quickly with calcultation errors, as did superPI. when i went back to slower speeds, the problems persisted. it seems that 2.05V at 1500mhz was just too much for it, and something was fried, probably the L1 or L2 cache.
idle was ok, but calculation errors and glitches at full load were its death sentence, even back at stock speeds and below!

so i pulled the chip, ducked out, and picked up a cheap XP1800+ at the local swapmeet.

im currently not overclocking, but am running the XP1800+ at a very cool 1.625v rock stable.
need to unlock this cpu before i try overclocking.



Proud owner of the <b>Beige Beast</b> :lol:

 

[lhgpoobaa]

P.S. if ya want to sleep at night, get a slower fan for your MCX-462 or a rheostat.
(my delta is running at only 3000rpm on double rheostats)

oh, and the MCX-462 fits nicely on the 8k3a+.

Proud owner of the <b>Beige Beast</b> :lol: