Need Abit SA6R input... worth buying?

[batboy]

Thinking about replacing my SE6 with a SA6R board. I'm lusting after the RAID controller and would love to have that the Soft Menu III with fsb settings higher than 153 MHz.

Any comments, gripes, and/or praise will be appreciated. Hopefully, someone out there has personal experience overclocking this mobo. Thanks in advance.

 

[Tachyon]

batboy (Mar 20, 2001 11:44 a.m.):
Thinking about replacing my SE6 with a SA6R board. I'm lusting after the RAID controller and would love to have that the Soft Menu III with fsb settings higher than 153 MHz.

Any comments, gripes, and/or praise will be appreciated. Hopefully, someone out there has personal experience overclocking this mobo. Thanks in advance.

This machine has been running an SA6R since October of last year. Absolutely zero problems. Has an 800EB currently at 900 but I've tested it at 960 with no problems. I just didn't want the FSB up that high. It's configured in RAID 0. I can't say enough good things about the board, SoftMenu III, or the HighPoint RAID Controller.

Terry

 

[batboy]

Just ordered an Abit SA6R board. Ok...now I'll have at least a dozen folks telling me that I just made a terrible mistake and that it sucks more than a vacuum cleaner. Dang, I've been upgrading so fast lately that I could almost put together another systems from all of my demoted components. Anyone want leftovers: SE6 and C-566/978 combo with 256 meg of RAM and a cooler???

 

[Tachyon]

batboy (Mar 23, 2001 07:21 p.m.):
Just ordered an Abit SA6R board. Ok...now I'll have at least a dozen folks telling me that I just made a terrible mistake and that it sucks more than a vacuum cleaner. Dang, I've been upgrading so fast lately that I could almost put together another systems from all of my demoted components. Anyone want leftovers: SE6 and C-566/978 combo with 256 meg of RAM and a cooler???

Every board has people that swear by it and people that hate it. I'm just suprised that I was the only one to give you feedback. This SA6R has an 800EB on it and I've tested it stable at 960MHz. It's running at 900MHz only because I didn't want to keep the PCI freq up that high.

I hope that you like your SA6R as much as I do.

Terry

 

[Scann69]

i've been thinking about getting the Abit SA6R for about a month now but the last i heard or shall i say read from a magazine that the board does not work very well with Windows 2000. Ofcourse currently most people are using Win98SE or Millennium but what heppens when the newer Windows come out. i'm not sure what is the name of the newer Windows that conbines Windows 2000 and Windows Millennium. do let me know what other have u found out about the MoBo cause i'm seriously thinking about buying it.

 

[Scann69]

I'm Intrested......Let me know

yo batboy, i'm intrested in your leftovers. the board, CPU, ram and cooler. let me know more about it. how much u planing to sell it for? does SE6 have softmenu II or III?

 

[Beast]

For your consideration

You might all want to consider this thread.

 

[batboy]

Scann69, I sent you an email. The SE6 has the Soft Menu II with the latest BIOS upgrade. I can also include a floppy disk with the latest INF installer utility, INF drivers, and ATA100 controller driver if you decide to buy the "stuff".

 

[batboy]

I've had my brand new Abit SA6R motherboard installed in my machine for 3 days now and I'm loving it so far. Rock stable at the specs in my signature. The RAM bus is running at 153 MHz, something my old SE6 was not able to do. Next step, buying a matched pair of IBM 45 gig harddrives to run on the RAID controller. I did the same cooling mods to the SA6R that I did with my old board. Installed a 40mm double thick fan onto the northbridge sink and then Arctic Silver epoxied sinks on the southbridge chip and on the ICS clock generator. I have an extra sink that will fit right on the Highpoint controller chip, but I don't know if that chip even gets warm. Anyone have any idea if it does get warm? Is this even worth considering?

 

[Tachyon]

I wouldn't waste the effort Batboy. I'm glad that you like the board. It appears to be underrated.

Terry

 

[dimmreaper]

I've heard lots of good things about the SA6 and SA6R boards. The only reason why I don't want one myself is because the board is a bit pricier than the VIA counterparts, and the on-board video sucks (even though I wouldn't use it, just can't stand having a part of my PC suck that bad).

 

[batboy]

Hey, Jeff...it's true about the onboard video and sound being not so great. I don't use them (have Sound Blaster Live! X-gamer 5.1 and Hercules MX cards), but with my old SE6 board, that is a nice resell feature. I have a guy at work (non-overclocker and non-gamer) that is interested in buying my old board, especially since he found out he don't have to buy extra video and sound cards. So, go figure. After playing around with several VIA boards that buddies have, I think I'll stay with the i815 for a while, since I can afford the little extra expense.

 

[dimmreaper]

I like on-board audio myself. I use the AC97 audio on my current MoBO. But the Idea of on-board video makes me feel sick.

You shouldn't just shrug the VIA boards off all together because you played with a few. VIA boards vary a lot more in quality and stability. Some boards are great, some blow. Once you figure out all there little qeurks, many are acctually nice boards. Though I think it's time for me to get rid of my old VA6 (a ***** to get stable, but once I figued out the querks it wasn't so bad), might swap it in for a VH6-II (Softmenu III with FSBs up to 178 baby ).

 

[marty]

Jeff,

That is interesting. I am using a Sound Blaster Live Value on my SE6 but also using the onboard video. I did benchmarking in 2D for the video and it was fine. It is faster than my old Matrox and ATI boards that my kids now have.

Since I don't do games I haven't seen any reason to get a video card. Many of the nice game oriented cards don't do well at all in 2D!

Anyway, to each his own.