Non-VIA chipset-based m/b for AMD CPUs

[archer]

Does anybody know of one?

(BTW, this is my first post here. Hiya all!)

I've been planning to get the Asus A7V mobo and Duron 700, but I feel very uneasy about getting a VIA chipset. (And I don't want to have to go for an Intel CPU.)

I hear of many people having problems with the 4-in-1 drivers causing their system to become flakey, apparently because VIA's new chipsets, (e.g. KT133, KT133a, etc.), are based on the very first VIA chipset designs (circa Apollo VP-1), which were a pretty shoddy design to begin with. That's why all us VIA chipset users use the same 4-in-1 drivers as each other, regardless of the actual model of chipset.

So instead of having redesigned the chipset, which it really needed, they just shoehorned high-performance extensions into a badly designed foundation.

Remember, this is all just hearsay. But does anybody have any suggestions/comments?

[klosters64a]

AFAIK, the AMD 750 chipset is the only alternative at present. Duron/T-Bird mainboards by SiS and ALi are either available now, or will be reasonably soon. Alas, these may be less than stellar performers. I'm not knowledgeable regarding K7/T-Bird/Duron systems, so take this with a proverbial grain. It's possible that the AMD 750 chipsetted mobo's only run Slot A Athlons.

AnandTech has a link to a [H]ardOCP shootout of sorts of four different chipsets for the T-Bird/Duron, today.

[OCPhreak]

Well Archer..the reason is that VIA's 4-in-1 is a unified driver...similar to what NVidia does with its driver updates...instead of releasing a driver for just this...or that...both of them release driver's that determine which chip you have and applys the appropriate settings/drivers contained within the archive you downloaded...

[Eriksson]

Well you hear a lot of bad things about the VIA chipset, but dont forget that the ppl that is happy with VIA does'nt have to post :)

Go VIA KT133A no question about that.

[archer]

The KT133A option certainly *sounds* like the best option.

However, the only reservation I have about it is this: motherboards are only just starting to become widely available as we speak (or write ;)) and so there quite probably will be bugs etc that can only be detected by widespread customer use, and thus ironed out.

Does anybody have any comments, or should I just go for an MSI or Abit as soon as I have the chance?

I'm a total newbie to overclocking - this will be my first overclockable system - but above all I need stability and a quiet PC, rather than a fully hardcore overclocked system. Therefore, maybe I'd be better off going for a tried and tested KT133 mobo?

Thanks for your comments.

[Rob Cork]

I think as long as you get a KT133a board from a trusted manufacturer like Asus or Abit the chances of problems with it should be no more than with any system - I have read a couple of reviews of KT133a boards, and generally they seem to perform well - especially in the case of the KT7a reviewed over at [H]ard OCP: http://hardocp.com/reviews/mainboards/abit/kt7a/index.html

If it was me buying, I'd go for the KT133a - you won't want to upgrade again for quite some time I'd imagine, and six months down the line the KT133a is going to be a much fresher board that the KT133.