SOLVED Ok, got a friend in need of some opinions.

[AoD]

Now two to be exact. He is going to buy a new system, yet he "might" not overclock if he doesn't see the need to but he is stuck in a decision. Now he already has a T-bird at 1.3ghz 266Fsb and he isn't sure what he should get for a mobo.

Now he wants choices both for prices and assured stability so here are the questions.

First, What DDR Mainboard is the best for Stability and Speed, not price specific.

Second, What Non DDR Mainboard is best for stability and Speed, not price specific.

Now the reason I came here to ask is because I think the people here are the best ol' chums out there and I know you are just like me and you love to give advice so. I asked here. Now he is looking for a price difference between what DDR and Non-DDR is but spare NO EXPENSE on the Mainboard. He specifically wants stability and quality. In otherwords he wants a board that works just fine for both ideas.

Thanks ahead of time guys,
-AoD

 

[donnie]

Out of all the different m/b s I have had over the last few years(and that has been about 30) I would have to say the Abit KT7A-Raid is the best I have had.If he isn't going to need raid I would say the KT7A board. I wouldn't recomend a DDR board because the haven't been out long enough to get all the bugs out yet. Gowith some good quality PC133 cas2 Memory it is still cheap and the KT7a boards will handle 1.5 gig of memory. They have a few quirks but when you get them figured out the board is the best I have had. If I hadn't o/ced it I probably wouldn't have had any quirks to start with.

KT7A-Raid T_bird 1333/266 @1612 watercooled

 

[Oni]

The best boards I've seen for stability are the iWill KK266 mobo, the Abit KT7a RAID, and the Asus A7V133 (although a lot of people knock it, it is actually a VERY stable board). I don't know much about the DDR boards. Sorry

 

[oc jason]

The Abit KT7A (or the Raid) is the BEST mobo in my opinion, not a DDR but its still awesome. Yes the Iwill KK266R is good but still has more bugs than the Abit-also the abit is grest stability and a good price- take a look at the FIC AZ11E, good board-supports 1.5gig of RAM, and you can up the FSB by 1 mhz at a time. Also you can run the chip at 133mhz and the RAM asynchronous at 100 mhz if you only got pc-100 ram-like me. ITs a good board for $90 bucks. Hope we help ya out

 

[SickBoy]

Best DDR mainboard? The K7T266 IMHO. Keep in mind I have no personal experience to go off of, but MSI has made some pretty decent KT133 and KT133A boards and the Via KT266 is the best DDR chipset from the benchmarking that I have seen. I know this friend of yours wants to spend top dollar and get the best, hands down, but the DDR market is young yet, and I think your friend would be better served by getting KT133A and a crapload of good PC133 since it's cheep right now. If he's really wanting to go top of the line, I would have him wait for DDR offerings based on the KT266 to come out from Abit, Iwill, Asus, and Epox. The DDR market is just not primed or mature yet.

SickBoy

 

[seabhac]

I only have my own experience to offer here but IMHO the Iwill KK266 is a strong contender. Mine was easy to set up. Very stable. Has a few really great features you may not find on other boards:

Lots of space for any HSF you can find out there currently.
Lots of capacitors for clean signal output.
Simple easy to use interface if he decides to OC or even if he doesn't.
Outstanding customer service response to any issues that arose with the product.

I would recommend this board solely on my experience with it. I don't think the customer support thing is near as good with the other manufacturers if the posts I see here in the forum are any indication at all.

 

[Nomis]

DDR solution: Iwill KA266 or KA266-R. The ALi-MAGiK 1 chipset is very stable, and since it was the first to be out, many of the problems has already been corrected through bios revisions. MSI would be the second one you want to consider but still lacking in the overclocking department. Asus is trouble. Where are you Abit?

DDR-SDRAM: 256mb Crucial pc2100 ddr-sdram for under $100.

Mainly for overclocking,
SDRAM Solution: Abit KT7A and Iwill KK266.

SDRAM: use already own pc133 sdram or buy a new pc166 cas 2 sdram for around $130.

Looks like the cost on both setup will level out between motherboard and the ram.

 

[Da Whip]

LikuidFusion, are you out of your mind!!
AoD - Checkout this link to Abit Stability and Quality. If you think they are # 1
http://www.viahardware.com/faq/ka7/ka7faq.htm

 

[Corax]

From all the reviews I've seen lately the ASUS A7M266 has always come out on top for quality, stability, and speed. There are currently issues with overclocking however. You can only overclock by upping the FSB. There is no way to ajust the multiplier without breaking out your soldering iron. There is talk about it being added in a BIOS revision, and there is a new beta bios aviailable on their site, but I don't have a board yet to see if it adds the multiplier ajust feature. If someone out there wants to try the beta BIOS on their A7M266 I'll attatch it so you don't have to hut it down on ASUS's site. Let me know what you find out I'd like to know.

As for DDR being too expensive.... You just have to know where to buy it.
www.crucial.com They sell PC1600 DDR for the same price as PC133 SDRAM and PC2100 for just a bit more.

If you are going to go DDR at least stick with the AMD 760 chipset. It costs a little more but it performs better.

 

[Blueface]

Go with Abit !!!!!

 

[AoD]

I'm sure he is gonna love to see all these opinions. He really doesn't care for DDR or SDRam. He just wants to go with what is better for him. Honestly, I don't know to much about AMD boards and I knew you guys would. I'm a 440bx guy myself. I know'em, and I love'em. Specially the fact that I know they are stable beyond 133mhz FSB (Officially 100). But that's beside the point. Thank's guys. He'll probably get to wind up a nice board. I'll have him check this post out when he is done playing Starcraft.