SOLVED GRRR, final decision- MSI K7 Master ddr or MSI KT7 Turbo LTD

[TheGhoul]

Well I am stumped, I need some feedback from those who are familiar with both these boards. I am leaving an employer who owes me $. So I am getting a T Bird 1000 pc266 and a mobo , the K7 Master or the KT7 Limited Edition with a 300 w power supply.

Okay I know one runs on ddr the other pc133, will I notice a big diff between the 2? I want to be able to overclock and the KT7 offers 1 mhz increments over the K7 Master. However it would be nicce to have newer ddr ram. I run a PIII 700 @ 875 on a MSI i815, and I love it. I use 384 mb Infenion ram that I would carry over to the KT7 Turbo and the ddr ram I need for the K7 would be a free 256 stick. So what is the best route to go, tests show the ddr board ahead but not by leaps and bounds. The k7 is a server /workstation board and the KT7 ?? kind. I like to 3 D Game but also do video editing and converting of divx to vcd mpgs plus use of photoshop 6.0 quite often to work on my digital photography. What would be the better choice so I do not have to upgrade for a while. Also the K7 has only 2 dimm slots and that is another issue, seems some of the earlier boards had 4.

I am stumped and need to decide by Sunday to order this ****. HELP ME PLEASE, all feedback is welcomed.

The ghoul

 

[TeKkDrOnE]

You will definitely notice the speed difference with ddr. I would sugggest looking here for info about the k7 master and k7t turbo: www.msihardware.com . I have the k7 master and while it is veRy stable, there is much left to be desired, especially in the area of BIOS updates/support.

 

[William]

I have the K7T turbo, its great. As far as DDR goes, the Epox is better than the MSI, especially if you are going to overclock. But if you want to stay with MSI, the K& Master is probably the better solution.

 

[TheGhoul]

William,

Thanx for your feedback, you mentioned you thought the Kt7 Turbo was great, what did you like about it. How does it compare to your BE6-II in performance as those were and are good bx boards still, I used one and loved it till it died.

The reson I am stil stuck is if I go the KT7 route I get more stuff for the same money, like a dvd drive and bigger hard drive for the money I am owed, plus I have the 384 mb infenion ram from my current system. In benchmark tests the ddr K7 did post better results but not in all categories. Yes I have looked at the Epox but to much plus I have been happy with MSI and am familiar with their bios.

Is it a close call b/w the two boards or is it a no brainer , go for the ddr board cause it is newer tech??

Tell me what you liked about the KT7 Turbo, one thing I know I like is the 1 mhz bios increments for oclocking.

Thanx
the ghoul

 

[TranceBear]

The Turbo is a great board for overclocking because of it's stability ans ease of use. As you mentioned the 1mhz increments are great and it has a great O/C-power user BIOS that rocks!! For the money you cannot find a better non-DDR board out there!!.

 

[TheGhoul]

So Trancebear you recommend the K7T Turbo then, what is the "Limited Edition" ? refer to. It will be this or the k& master or a gigabyte ddr board , decisoon in day or so.

the ghoul

 

[jeff_harrison_344]

you may have gotten the reply to my email, but just in case, I would go for the Turbo

 

[krakerman]

offhand i think the limited is just a red colored board instead of the green. i wanted one bad but decided i'd just stick w/ my present board instead. if there are any differences between the turbo and limited they probably aren't too big (someone correct me if im wrong ;-) ).

 

[TranceBear]

krakerman (Jul 21, 2001 11:57 p.m.):
offhand i think the limited is just a red colored board instead of the green. i wanted one bad but decided i'd just stick w/ my present board instead. if there are any differences between the turbo and limited they probably aren't too big (someone correct me if im wrong ;-) ).

You are right, just the red epoxy coating on the board, no hardware change.

 

[chaos]

I've read on Anandtech.com that the turbo-r limited board has fsb to 199 and multiplier to 15x-that's on the raid version-i have the limited version w/o raid-haven't hooked it up yet.

 

[TranceBear]

chaos (Jul 22, 2001 07:27 a.m.):
I've read on Anandtech.com that the turbo-r limited board has fsb to 199 and multiplier to 15x-that's on the raid version-i have the limited version w/o raid-haven't hooked it up yet.

My Turbo non-raid has multiplyers to 15 and FSB to 166, more than enough for what I need. 15x166mhz=2490mhz!!, We'll see about that, maybe with one of those sooper-dooper new titatium ORBS!!....LOL!