Motherboard opinions needed.

[Jon]

About a month from now is my birthday and I am going to be building the first AMD system for myself. I've always used Intel but feel it's time to step over into a new world. I've built a few AMD systems for others but never had to worry about performance, etc. since it wasn't for me.

Some things I am wanting to know is as follows:

Should I take the KA266-R and switch over to DDR memory? From what I have read there isn't a significant increase in performance and I already have 2 x 256MB of CAS2 PC133 Crucial memory. I'd rather not buy more if it's not needed so I was thinking of going the way of the KK266-R.

I plan on getting a pre-tested [email protected] Thunderbird (after my P3 700 didn't hit 933 I'm not taking chances) and using the Millenium heatsink w/Delta fan on it then all of the other parts from my exisiting system (2 Maxtor 7200 30GB ATA100 drives, Radeon 64MB VIVO, SB Live X-Gamer, 52X CD, 10X DVD, 512MB PC133, D-Link NIC) and putting it all in a new 400W Antec SOHO Fieserver case.

So basically, let me know what you guys think are the best AMD boards out there that support RAID and whether or not it would be worth it to move to DDR memory or not. I know it's cheap and all but I don't want to get it if I don't NEED to.

Thanks in advance...

 

[UnseenMenace]

Well I personally like the Abit KT7A-Raid as this mobo recieved great reviews and is widely used and respected on this forum, not to mention a great performer with its soft bios

As for the DDR question, I don't think the time is right yet as the technology needs to improve and mature with yet another DDR compatibility issue arising on the new Abit KG7 DDR mobo and until the time that DDR standards are stable I will stay off it.

Forum Debate on the latest DDR conflicts

 

[Jon]

Just read that foum and I'm not stuck on the KK266-R...it's sort of my tentative choice. I'm well aware of Abit's board and it is also high in the running. I've got it down to 3 choices but was going to keep quiet until I got enough responses although it wouldn't be too difficult to figure out what they were.

Also had a quicj question about the PC133 memory I currently have. I read several months ago and am not sure if it is even an issue anymore, but aren't AMD motherboards extremely picky about the type of memory?...unbuffered, registered, etc? I ordered mine specifically for my Soyo SY-7VCA motherboard and am not for certain if it will work. I'm sure I can check the website for compatibility but if anyone has a quick answer it would be appreciated. I'm at work and this 28.8 connection is hard to do alot of detective work with.

Thanks again...

 

[taz1004]

If you're building a whole new box, I would recommend DDR since they do offer slight performance at same cost as PC133 now. But if you're doing partial upgrade and use existing PC133 SDRAM, I belive the most popular motherboard is Abit... although Epox has gotten some great reviews as well.

Crucial CAS2 PC133 should work well on any KT133 boards.

As for pre-tested processors... how much do they run now? With such low AMD CPU prices, I'm pretty sure you can pickup 1.33G or 1.4G T-Bird for not much more than those pre-tested ones.

--BrianC

 

[Jon]

Well, Da Nut has them for $170 which is pretty good...hopefully will drop another $5-$10 in the next month. So far the cheapest 1.4G I've seen is just under $200 on Pricewatch so that's another $30 I could use for a floppy which I'm possibly going to need.

I've got 4 PCs now so I will be taking parts out of my main rig to build this one with. I'll still have enough parts available to keep them all going though, just need another floppy drive unless I can figure out how to make a bootable Win2k install disk from a Zip drive...then I'll use that. 6 additional CD/CDRW/DVD drives and 11 hard drives...I don't need anything more.

If the price comes down on the 1.4 I may consider it...might be able to squeeze an extra 100Mhz out of it too.

 

[Aman99]

Do not go with the Abit board. It doesn't seem to like multipliers above 10x. I had an Abit KT7A-RAID, couldn't do a 10.5X133, and it only did 10x133 SOME of the time, and sometimes it could do 10x140, but never 10.5x133, which doesn't make sense. I got myself an Iwill KK266R, not only does this board do about 160 mhz FSB fine (my abit only did like 140mhz FSB), but it also has worked on all the settings i have put it to, and my t-bird that could only run 1333 PART of the time on my abit, does 1400 no problems at all on my Iwill. Don't believe all the Abit problems? check out this post http://forums.overclockers.ws/forums/UltraBoard.cgi?action=Read&BID=2&TID=19241&SID=101722 I highyl recommend the Iwill board, the Asus A7V133 works alright to, as long as you use jumpers and not the bios, but it doesn't overclock as well or have as many tweaking options.

Aaron