Abit KT7A or Iwill KK266??

[collindv]

I think I have narowed my motherboard search down to the Abit KT7A (perhaps RAID) and the Iwill KK266. Can anyone give me some + and - for each? Is there a consensus on which is better, or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether. Processor will be an 800 MHz Duron.

Considering a GeForce 2 UTS with 32 MB DDRAM for the video. Input?

 

[Tachyon]

collindv (Apr 04, 2001 07:37 a.m.):
I think I have narowed my motherboard search down to the Abit KT7A (perhaps RAID) and the Iwill KK266. Can anyone give me some + and - for each? Is there a consensus on which is better, or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether. Processor will be an 800 MHz Duron.

Considering a GeForce 2 UTS with 32 MB DDRAM for the video. Input?

Everyone has different experiences so expect different opinions. They are both good manufacturers so I recommend you look at the spec's for both and pick the one that meets your needs (ie. SoftMenu vs Jumpers).

I'd recommend a GTS with SDRAM over DDRAM.

Terry

 

[Yomama]

ABIT boards are usually well built, but some I had were not free of minor flaws (controllers and IRQ conflicts). Their customer service though sucks...

Iwill is relatively new in the O/C performance market, but their board is super stable even at well above 150MHz. Moreover their customer support is good (at least by comparison).

Yo

 

[Kriegster]

either board is probably a good choice. I have the iwill and I like it alot. The iwill's seem to consistently reach higher bus speeds than the abits (mine will do 170).I think both motherboards have turbo ram settings and 4 way interleave (i know the iwill does). You should definately get some top notch memory so you can clock up the bus and ram timings. if you plan on using raid and also linux i don't think the abit supports it but the iwill "supposedly" does. the iwill is a bit more of a pain to tweak because you need to use a jumper to change the fsb from 100-132 and 133-200 fsb. also i'm not sure about the abit but it seems that the iwills vcore runs a bit faster than the setting (at 1.85 vcore my iwill runs at 1.93), i'm not sure if the abit's normally do this. the abit definately has a leg up on iwill with overclocker experience. I had one of the original bx2 boards with a 266 cacheless celry and it is still kicking as for the vid card i have that 1 and it isn't bad. not a bad choice if you can pick up a cheap 1. The 1 thing i think i would change would be to buy a 1 ghz axia t-bird cpu instead if you can afford it. With the tbird with the axia code maybe you can get that puppy up to 1.4 ghz. Also buy yourself a decent heatsink (either large or 1 with a real powerful fan- or both- JUST DONT GET A SUPER ORB!!). Don't skimp on this. If you must skimp buy the cheap silicon paste instead of the arctic silver. ???

 

[AZZKICKER]

i love my KT7A-RAID by Abit

i have a T Bird 950 @ 1200 mhz @ 2.11 volts @ 133 fsb

i have run this board 100% stable @ 160 fsb but my nic and SBLive **** out at those speeds

as long as you get your cards in the right combonation then you shouldnt have a problem

if you get the ABIT then give me a yell and ill help you set it up

hope this helps and good luck

 

[Megahurtz]

I have the Iwill KK266 plain vanilla, and am very happy with it. One users experience. I have had no issues with the board at all.

If you are a first time builder, the manual leaves a bit to be desired..however, my particular board has performed beyond my expectations. You must use very high quality RAM in order to reach the board's limit.

I am somewhat puzzled by your graphics card question. Could you be more precise about which cards you are considering for purchase?

Cheers,

T