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Abit KT7 or Asus A7V: which to choose?
- Thread starter sleddog
- Start date
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2000
- Location
- home
I was personaly going through that same delema, until I decided to wait until KT133A boards ship.
You will hear many good arguments in favor of either board. No matter which one you get I'm sure you will be happy
You will hear many good arguments in favor of either board. No matter which one you get I'm sure you will be happy
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2000
This is what i am waiting for as well when i build my t-bird system
But to answer the question i have a K7V from asus and it is rock solid. It never gives me any problems. I also have an Abit BE6-2 with also finctions great. I dont think you can go wrong with either board.
But to answer the question i have a K7V from asus and it is rock solid. It never gives me any problems. I also have an Abit BE6-2 with also finctions great. I dont think you can go wrong with either board.
Ok, I have both boards. I can say this. The A7V is every bit as good a motherboard as the KT7, and vice versa.
BUT:
The A7V is so, so much simpler to deal with. Easier to make it stable, it is SMOKIN fast, and I am not afraid of tweaking things here and there.
The KT7 can become stable, after MUCH, MUCH tweaking (bios flashes, which driver to use, oh, you can't use the ISA slot if you use the PS2 mouse port, etc... the list of issues goes on for miles) If you buy the KT7, expect to be devoted to the KT7 forum for a couple of days before you get it all peachee. Don't get me wrong, I Love the board, it runs solid stable now (duron 600@950 ROCK SOLID) but with all of the issues, it took a while to get it there.
Summary:
For ease and stability with great performance, A7V ALL the way.
For performance with headaches (but you get the cool feature of RAID, and a sense of accomplishment when done) get the KT7.
Hope that was not too long, but useful
BUT:
The A7V is so, so much simpler to deal with. Easier to make it stable, it is SMOKIN fast, and I am not afraid of tweaking things here and there.
The KT7 can become stable, after MUCH, MUCH tweaking (bios flashes, which driver to use, oh, you can't use the ISA slot if you use the PS2 mouse port, etc... the list of issues goes on for miles) If you buy the KT7, expect to be devoted to the KT7 forum for a couple of days before you get it all peachee. Don't get me wrong, I Love the board, it runs solid stable now (duron 600@950 ROCK SOLID) but with all of the issues, it took a while to get it there.
Summary:
For ease and stability with great performance, A7V ALL the way.
For performance with headaches (but you get the cool feature of RAID, and a sense of accomplishment when done) get the KT7.
Hope that was not too long, but useful
I just fired up a Abit KT7/800Mhz Duron after my K7M/slot A combo gave up the ghost. It has been very stable so far, but I have not been pushing it at all. OS stability first, then tweak the MB.
I am just 'renting' this system until the new DDR boards and the new chip come out. So that should be a few months. I would be warry about putting an older chip in the DDR boards, the performacne increase does not look like it will be very high. Waiting for the new AMD chip will be the key, that new chip and DDR should be smoking fast!
Anyway, a $260 upgrade is very cheap and will get me through another 6 months, especially if this chip turns out to be a good overclocker!
I am just 'renting' this system until the new DDR boards and the new chip come out. So that should be a few months. I would be warry about putting an older chip in the DDR boards, the performacne increase does not look like it will be very high. Waiting for the new AMD chip will be the key, that new chip and DDR should be smoking fast!
Anyway, a $260 upgrade is very cheap and will get me through another 6 months, especially if this chip turns out to be a good overclocker!
I just fired up a Abit KT7/800Mhz Duron after my K7M/slot A combo gave up the ghost. It has been very stable so far, but I have not been pushing it at all. OS stability first, then tweak the MB.
I am just 'renting' this system until the new DDR boards and the new chip come out. So that should be a few months. I would be warry about putting an older chip in the DDR boards, the performacne increase does not look like it will be very high. Waiting for the new AMD chip will be the key, that new chip and DDR should be smoking fast!
Anyway, a $260 upgrade is very cheap and will get me through another 6 months, especially if this chip turns out to be a good overclocker!
I am just 'renting' this system until the new DDR boards and the new chip come out. So that should be a few months. I would be warry about putting an older chip in the DDR boards, the performacne increase does not look like it will be very high. Waiting for the new AMD chip will be the key, that new chip and DDR should be smoking fast!
Anyway, a $260 upgrade is very cheap and will get me through another 6 months, especially if this chip turns out to be a good overclocker!
I just fired up a Abit KT7/800Mhz Duron after my K7M/slot A combo gave up the ghost. It has been very stable so far, but I have not been pushing it at all. OS stability first, then tweak the MB.
I am just 'renting' this system until the new DDR boards and the new chip come out. So that should be a few months. I would be warry about putting an older chip in the DDR boards, the performacne increase does not look like it will be very high. Waiting for the new AMD chip will be the key, that new chip and DDR should be smoking fast!
Anyway, a $260 upgrade is very cheap and will get me through another 6 months, especially if this chip turns out to be a good overclocker!
I am just 'renting' this system until the new DDR boards and the new chip come out. So that should be a few months. I would be warry about putting an older chip in the DDR boards, the performacne increase does not look like it will be very high. Waiting for the new AMD chip will be the key, that new chip and DDR should be smoking fast!
Anyway, a $260 upgrade is very cheap and will get me through another 6 months, especially if this chip turns out to be a good overclocker!
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2000
- Location
- Southern California
After doing allm the mods, is the KT7 beter? I mean If i do the voltage mod on the KT7 to, to squeeze out an extra volt or to, then it should out perform the Asus becuase it has the voltage to suport the higher FSB that the KT7 has right? If you cant tell, I'm pro KT7, but dont take my opinion over an expierenced overclcoker, Im just a forum junky ;D
_________________________________________
Actually, the A7V is very easy to modify to get extra voltage as well. Toms Hardware did a nice piece on the A7V. It can be found here:
Trust me, I OWN BOTH BOARDS. Neither is really any better for O'Cing than the other. they will both only take my duron 600 to 950 without any problems. And they will BOTH only take my T-bird 700 to 850 without any problems.
Personnally, I like em both, but the ABIT has TERRIBLE documentation!!!
The A7V is amenable to a much larger number of coolers. The ABIT has an array of capacitors surrounding the socket, which limit the size of the cooler you can use. Beyond that, the ABIT has 1 ISA slot, the ASUS has none, but it does have a relatively useless AMR riser, instead. (If anyone knows its raison d' terre, inform the world (Where's the French character set?)). The ABIT also has a RAID option, which is about $20 extra, wheras the ASUS doesn't. Even if you don't intend to use RAID now, to add it to the ASUS board will take up a slot, and cost $50 - $100 for the controller. I agree with the other posters: both boards are very nice, and adequate for most uses. Neither is perfect, but then again, what is? You must decide which features are most important, ie RAID, cooler compatibility, etc. The prices are relatively equivalent, and their basic performance is also about the same, so you should be happy with either one. I know, "Thanks for Nuttin" For more detailed info on each board, got to: http://www.abit.com.tw/english/index.htm
and:http://www.asus.com
Good luck
HTH
and:http://www.asus.com
Good luck
HTH
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2000
- Location
- Portland, OR
here's my two low money value comments. I've got a KT-7 Raid, and while standard browsing and that is stable as anything else, alot of games crash, alot. I'm only running a mild oc (mild in my mind) so I'd figure it shouldn't be that much of an issue. I'd love to have this system stable - but...ich habe kein zeit (i just don't have the time to read 100's of post day on it)! If I wanted hardware issues I'd go back to working with Sun Sparc 20's. ;-)
Guess I was sorta spoiled by my no maint BX-6r2...
cheers!
Guess I was sorta spoiled by my no maint BX-6r2...
cheers!
I have heard many good things about Asus, however our motherboard forums gets a lot of questions regarding the Asus A7V, more than the KT7.
Both the Asus and Abit run on the same VIA KT133 chipset so the driver issues should be similar.
I am running Abit KT7-R and I am not familiar with the nightmare of Bios flashes,Driver probs or anything else. I have honestly not had ANY problems with this board. If anyone has doubts about the quality of the Abit KT7-R I suggest he/she should use internet search with the keywords "reviews Abit kt7" and read like ten or so.
However the Raid board offers new features (at least to many people) and therefore, install without careful reading of the manual is not recommended on my part. All the tweaking, to get this board at its peak simply consist of setting few memory settings to enabled in bios, how hard can that be??
Eriksson : Duron 700@1100mhz/ Abit-KT7-R
Both the Asus and Abit run on the same VIA KT133 chipset so the driver issues should be similar.
I am running Abit KT7-R and I am not familiar with the nightmare of Bios flashes,Driver probs or anything else. I have honestly not had ANY problems with this board. If anyone has doubts about the quality of the Abit KT7-R I suggest he/she should use internet search with the keywords "reviews Abit kt7" and read like ten or so.
However the Raid board offers new features (at least to many people) and therefore, install without careful reading of the manual is not recommended on my part. All the tweaking, to get this board at its peak simply consist of setting few memory settings to enabled in bios, how hard can that be??
Eriksson : Duron 700@1100mhz/ Abit-KT7-R
Well... to be honest w/ you, I would go w/ the KT7-Raid...not the KT7. Reason being for the Raid-0 and Raid-1 support.
Both boards are great boards, but I'm sure the Raid has the advantage here... U get a raid controller with an extra PCI slot. That compensates the difference w/ the extra 20 bucks u pay for Raid as opposed to the standard KT7
Abit baby!
Both boards are great boards, but I'm sure the Raid has the advantage here... U get a raid controller with an extra PCI slot. That compensates the difference w/ the extra 20 bucks u pay for Raid as opposed to the standard KT7
Abit baby!
I've built machine's with both these boards. They both have their pro's and cons.
A7V cons - If using onboard promise controller card, the extra onboard USB ports don't work. No BIOS fix for this yet.
A7V + GeForce + Win2K = instability unless you switch to 2X AGP in bios. You can also try 4X with and AGP drive strength of "B" and "A".
Seems to run CPU's a lot hotter than the KT7 (could be temp sensor problems too)
I had to use jumper mode for changing voltage and multiplier. Those settings wouldn't take in the BIOS.
KT7 cons - PCI to 1394 adaptors have problems as reported on this website.
Also has geforce issues but I have had less problems with the KT7 than the A7V.
A7V Pros: Built in AGPpro slot and ATA-100. Works with 1394 cards.
KT7 - In my experience had less stability problems.
Better for overclocking
seems to generate less heat at the CPU
A7V cons - If using onboard promise controller card, the extra onboard USB ports don't work. No BIOS fix for this yet.
A7V + GeForce + Win2K = instability unless you switch to 2X AGP in bios. You can also try 4X with and AGP drive strength of "B" and "A".
Seems to run CPU's a lot hotter than the KT7 (could be temp sensor problems too)
I had to use jumper mode for changing voltage and multiplier. Those settings wouldn't take in the BIOS.
KT7 cons - PCI to 1394 adaptors have problems as reported on this website.
Also has geforce issues but I have had less problems with the KT7 than the A7V.
A7V Pros: Built in AGPpro slot and ATA-100. Works with 1394 cards.
KT7 - In my experience had less stability problems.
Better for overclocking
seems to generate less heat at the CPU
OK, I have read a lot of posts that say the KT7 is so wonderful. That the documentation is just fine, etc...
Truth of it is, in the KT7 manual I got with the board, it does not say hardly anything about the onboard RAID controller. In fact, it says that for information on it, you would have to resort to the web, but doesn't give a url. To me, that is poor documentation. Maybe I have just been too spoiled by other Mobo manufacturers, I don't know.
As far as "easy to set up", well, lets just say that the unnoficial faq forum for the KT7 has more than its share of posts with people too frustrated to carry on with the KT7. However, the A7V faq forum is much smaller, and much less frequented. I do know that if you need to use the ISA slot for SOME cards (like my high speed ISP requires) then you CANNOT use the PS2 mouse port. Evidently, there are some ISA cards, that are capable of sharing IRQ's. But things like SBLive in PCI #4 ONLY, well, things like that are bothersome. Although, some have been lucky and been able to make it work in a different slot, I am sure. Just check out all of the people trying to get their KT7 running stable here, and I won't even have to reply again. This forum says it all.
Again, in the long run, neither board will get you any further for OC'ing. As far as the Raid option, its kinda cool, but it really doesn't make THAT much of a difference. At least it doesn't seem to on these 2 computers I have sitting next to each other. Two WD 20Gig 7200 striped (KT7) , vs 1 WD 20Gig 7200 not striped (A7V). Both same OS, same ram (512 Infineon). With these 2 next to each other, remebering the whole process for each one, and seeing the final results for each one, I would not recomend the KT7, unless you are after the challenge.
The A7V is EVERY bit as stable as the KT7. Fact is, the company I work for just built 9 computers with the A7V for Pro-E use. They went with the A7V over the KT7 for what reason? Stability.
Again, I agree that they are both good boards, in their own ways. The best thing to do is to figure out what you want, check which board fits those needs, and go that route.
Truth of it is, in the KT7 manual I got with the board, it does not say hardly anything about the onboard RAID controller. In fact, it says that for information on it, you would have to resort to the web, but doesn't give a url. To me, that is poor documentation. Maybe I have just been too spoiled by other Mobo manufacturers, I don't know.
As far as "easy to set up", well, lets just say that the unnoficial faq forum for the KT7 has more than its share of posts with people too frustrated to carry on with the KT7. However, the A7V faq forum is much smaller, and much less frequented. I do know that if you need to use the ISA slot for SOME cards (like my high speed ISP requires) then you CANNOT use the PS2 mouse port. Evidently, there are some ISA cards, that are capable of sharing IRQ's. But things like SBLive in PCI #4 ONLY, well, things like that are bothersome. Although, some have been lucky and been able to make it work in a different slot, I am sure. Just check out all of the people trying to get their KT7 running stable here, and I won't even have to reply again. This forum says it all.
Again, in the long run, neither board will get you any further for OC'ing. As far as the Raid option, its kinda cool, but it really doesn't make THAT much of a difference. At least it doesn't seem to on these 2 computers I have sitting next to each other. Two WD 20Gig 7200 striped (KT7) , vs 1 WD 20Gig 7200 not striped (A7V). Both same OS, same ram (512 Infineon). With these 2 next to each other, remebering the whole process for each one, and seeing the final results for each one, I would not recomend the KT7, unless you are after the challenge.
The A7V is EVERY bit as stable as the KT7. Fact is, the company I work for just built 9 computers with the A7V for Pro-E use. They went with the A7V over the KT7 for what reason? Stability.
Again, I agree that they are both good boards, in their own ways. The best thing to do is to figure out what you want, check which board fits those needs, and go that route.
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2000
- Location
- home
Just one to throw in one little detail. The KT7 has an ISA slot. I build a lot of computers for not only myself but friends and family. I have had horrible luck with even the "best" win modems. I would much rather spend a wad on an ISA modem. This leaves me with a few optians, if I were to ever buy an A7V. External modem, or hardware PCI modem. I havn't been able to find a hardware PCI modem, so that rules it out. Not to meantian that Winmodems are hell in Linux. I do however want a USR external 56k modem. If someone wants to trade me for an internal ISA 56k modem, please Email me
- Joined
- Dec 19, 2000
Asus A7V all the way
I have a much different story about the KT7 and A7V boards. I originally ended up purchasing one of each, because I was building two systems, but the KT7 quickly hit the road inside a computer I built for a friend.
Many people seem to feel that the KT7 is BETTER at overclocking, because it is made by Abit, the former king of overclocking motherboards. Unfortunately this is far from the case. I had several AMD Durons that would run completely stable on my ASUS A7V at 900 MHz. When I tried placing these same CPUs in the KT7, however, with all other factors being equal, they would not run stable at higher than 850 MHz. The processors would not even load windows at 900 MHz, and one wouldn't even post. Despite fiddling around with all of the options in the BIOS, I was unable to get the chips stable at 900 MHz. When I put them back in the A7V, they were rock solid again at 900 MHz.
A third Duron chip that I had would only run stable at 850 MHz in my A7V. Strangely, this chip would also run at 850 MHz in the KT7. HOWEVER, it would only post every other time. It was like clockwork. Turn it on once, nothing, no post. Turn the power off and turn it on again, and it runs fine at 850, until you turn it off anyway, then you had to pull another dual boot (and I'm not talking Win98 and 2000 on one computer ;-)
Needless to say I was very underwhelmed by the performance of the KT7, and I quickly sold it off to a friend who didn't mind that it would only run the processor at 850 MHz rather than 900 MHz (compared to his K6-2 300, both speeds were unbelievably fast). I would strongly suggest going with the Asus A7V, unless you decide to wait until the 133A boards come out, but you might be waiting a while since the first ones out don't look to be supporting multiplier adjustments.
I have a much different story about the KT7 and A7V boards. I originally ended up purchasing one of each, because I was building two systems, but the KT7 quickly hit the road inside a computer I built for a friend.
Many people seem to feel that the KT7 is BETTER at overclocking, because it is made by Abit, the former king of overclocking motherboards. Unfortunately this is far from the case. I had several AMD Durons that would run completely stable on my ASUS A7V at 900 MHz. When I tried placing these same CPUs in the KT7, however, with all other factors being equal, they would not run stable at higher than 850 MHz. The processors would not even load windows at 900 MHz, and one wouldn't even post. Despite fiddling around with all of the options in the BIOS, I was unable to get the chips stable at 900 MHz. When I put them back in the A7V, they were rock solid again at 900 MHz.
A third Duron chip that I had would only run stable at 850 MHz in my A7V. Strangely, this chip would also run at 850 MHz in the KT7. HOWEVER, it would only post every other time. It was like clockwork. Turn it on once, nothing, no post. Turn the power off and turn it on again, and it runs fine at 850, until you turn it off anyway, then you had to pull another dual boot (and I'm not talking Win98 and 2000 on one computer ;-)
Needless to say I was very underwhelmed by the performance of the KT7, and I quickly sold it off to a friend who didn't mind that it would only run the processor at 850 MHz rather than 900 MHz (compared to his K6-2 300, both speeds were unbelievably fast). I would strongly suggest going with the Asus A7V, unless you decide to wait until the 133A boards come out, but you might be waiting a while since the first ones out don't look to be supporting multiplier adjustments.
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