What do you guys think of the KR7A???

Now that several of you have had the KR7A for awhile, how do you like it? Good and Bad? Overclocking? Stability? Thinking of getting it, an 1800+ and 512mg Mushkin High Performance DDR.

It's nothing special really, all KT266A chipset motherboard perform quite well. The only reason I choose the KR7A-R are the features, like the jumperless softmenu III, unwanted onboard sound, V-Link and ATA/133. Also good abit bios support. I have two complains about this motherboard. First, it's one of the most expensive KT266A chipset motherboard, I feel bad when I saw the Iwill XP333-R cost less than $120. The other one is the unstable dimm slots, result in much lower FSB overclocking with multiple sticks of rams compare to just one stick of ram. One stick of Kingmax PC2700 ram at 200MHZ FSB but the ram needs a little more voltage than the board's max 2.85v to finsh a 3DMark2001 benchmark Two sticks of ram I get around 175MHz FSB or ram at the fastest memory timing is around 155MHz FSB. If you decide on this motherboard, get only one stick of ram but there might not be a good stick of 512MB DDR ram right now that can run at FSB like 200MHz. As for an XP1800, I'm having trouble with my swiftech MCX462 heatsink, my xp1800's temputure is in the 40C and sometime 50C, Just can seem to get 32C like most reviews. I Know I can get 1.7GHz with air cooling if I can get the temperture down but any higher MHz, only water cooling will do. Maybe XP1900 can get you more if it has newer or better stepping.

I love the thing. Got 3x256mb PC2400 DIMMs on it; solid as a rock. Peltier and MCX462 HSF combo runs solid and cold. I can go MUCH higher than I am now, I just need to get around to doing it.

donny, did you try the swiftech MCX-462 by itself before adding a peltier, if so how high did the XP1800 overclocked to, like did it past 1.70GHz. thanks

NOWIS said:

donny, did you try the swiftech MCX-462 by itself before adding a peltier, if so how high did the XP1800 overclocked to, like did it past 1.70GHz. thanks

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Nope. I had a Dynatron copper microfin HSF on there with a 6800rpm 60mm Delta jet engine on it. With that I also got to 1700 actually. The addition of the MCX462 and TEC was done to facilitate higher overclocks in the near future i.e. as soon as I get the motivation to tweak some more....I'm in a lull of this hobby right now.

tits

running 3x256 dimms at 5,2,2,2,4way,1T,ultra at 155 solid

At first, I REALLY HATED IT. I had an Abit KG7 which was SUPER stable. And going from the KG7 to the KR7A started out as a nightmare. I could load up a fresh install on the KG7 with ALL periperals and expansion cards loaded, no probs. But with the KR7A I had to disco everything and start with the video card only. After the last few weeks as I have become more familiar with the board, I am starting to REALLY LIKE IT! Its colors are slowly shining through and as I learn more about the settings and how to optomize it, it becomes a diamond in the rough. I Love Abit for many reasons including:

1. Build quality, top rate
2. No unessary BS to pay for(AMR,Onboard sound etc)
3. 4 Dimm's, I use em all with Registered ECC memory
4. Design of componenet placement is 2nd to none!
5. Stability(finally)

The closest thing to an Abit IMO isnt even worth considering.

Ritteri&Bubbles said:

At first, I REALLY HATED IT. I had an Abit KG7 which was SUPER stable. And going from the KG7 to the KR7A started out as a nightmare. I could load up a fresh install on the KG7 with ALL periperals and expansion cards loaded, no probs. But with the KR7A I had to disco everything and start with the video card only. After the last few weeks as I have become more familiar with the board, I am starting to REALLY LIKE IT! Its colors are slowly shining through and as I learn more about the settings and how to optomize it, it becomes a diamond in the rough. I Love Abit for many reasons including:

1. Build quality, top rate
2. No unessary BS to pay for(AMR,Onboard sound etc)
3. 4 Dimm's, I use em all with Registered ECC memory
4. Design of componenet placement is 2nd to none!
5. Stability(finally)

The closest thing to an Abit IMO isnt even worth considering.

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Yeah, I love 'em

I'm very happy with mine. I had an ASUS A7V266-E which I was not at all happy with (minor glitches but at what prize!) so I got it RMA'd and now I've got the KR7A-RAID and have had no problems (except for a chipped CPU ) I even got higher benchmarks in SiSoft contrary to reviews and after installing the PCI patch my drives benchmarks went up up and up!