Can you help me to decide? Tbird650/700 - Duron 750/800 - KT7 - A7V

[2D2]

Im goint to buy a processor, mobo and cooler.
But I cant decide.
Can you help me?
Processor (socket A):
Athlon 650 or 700
Duron 750 or 800
(dependes of the price, I want a <$100 processor because I have to pay taxes if the price is >$100)
Mainboard:
Abit KT7 RAID
Asus A7V
Does the RAID thing helps too much?
And finally, I want a ¨cool¨ cooler, I am thinking in a Alpha PAL6035.
What do you suggest?

[Ronin]

The Duron at 800Mhz. Get the Asus board.

Reason being I have seen people get the 800Mhz duron up to 1155Mhz. Also the raid isnt really special. Others may have different opinions.

Also if u wait till the end of this month prices should drop some more. The new 850Mhz duron is coming in a matter of days. So a drop of prices will occur.

[merlins_wraith]

Well i recently went through the same process in building my current system.... from what i read the asus board is a slightly preferred board .... but i went with the abit board (with raid) because of availability in my area.... and i love the abit board with the soft menu bios (WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE NO JUMPERS BUT THE ONE TO CLEAR THE CMOS ... someone pinch me) ... the raid array option is pretty much useless unless you are planning to run multiple duplicate hard drives (the simplified bottom line ... you can lose a hard drive due to mechanical failure and your system doesn't lose a beat) but the raid only ran me an extra $5 so oh well !!!

On the proc issue ... the tbird is the better processor if you are going to leave the system stock .... if you plan to overclock the duron is the better choice (in my opinion) because of the lower spec'd cvoltage, so it easier for the beginner or immediate overclocker.... anyway there's my two cent worth

'do or do not ... there is no try' *yoda*
abit kt7(raid) duron 700@947
~other modified paperweights~

[dommer]

The real advantage of the raid is RAID 0, not RAID 1, which effectively doubles speed. RAID 1, which doubles reliability (and price) with no gain in space is what is useless. But overall, how often do you write a whole boatload of data to your HD? I have the KT7-Raid, but maybe now I would go with the A7V because of the higher voltage it allows, and slightly cheaper price, and the RAID is not all that big of a deal. Kind of neat though.

[AZZKICKER]

2D2 wait for a few weeks untill the new boards are out

the is a new abit and asus boards with the KT133A chipset
they are the ASUS A7V133 and the ABIT KT7A-RAid AND KT7A

[Fenris]

I am very pleased with my ABIT KT7 Raid board. If you need to get a mainboard right now, buy it, although the ASUS is good as well.

If you can wait....do what AZZKICKER said!

[Rob Cork]

The only reason I'd get a KT7 with raid and not an ordinary KT7 is that the ordinary KT7 only has UDMA 66 support cause of the KT133 chipset - the new KT7a not only has the Kt133a chipset, which allows the 133MHz fsb (woohoo!) but also incorporates the new VIA 686B south bridge, which has native UDMA100 support (woohoo again!). It should be available real soon (if not now), so go for that, or an asus equivalent.

[AZZKICKER]

thats right
you can run 8 ATA100 drives on the KT7A-RAID board
yeehaaaa

heehaa

[AZZKICKER]

the abit and asus and epox boards all go to 166mhz fsb

seen a t bird 750 blue core @ 155FSB x 6 = 930mhz but id was out performing t birds @ 1050mhz

cant wait

[Liverbugg]

im building a new system and i was going ot buy the kt7-raid but now if hte kt7a is coming out i definatly am going to get that

anyone know when it will be released? i cant wait for my new system...right now im using a p166 ahhh i hate it