Which DDR motherboard will be the champion? Abit KG7-RAID or Gigabyte 7DXR

[toomnymods]

I'm planning on buying either of these two boards cause i wanna overclock my system. I have a Asus a7m266 right now, and i cant get it stable over 142 mhz fsb plus thier is no cpu multiplier so im planning on ditchin this piece of junk for a newer better board due out sometime in June, Anyone heard any awesome storys on these? Supposedly both have more than 2 ddr dimms as well as being fully overclockable cpu multiplier & fsb as well as voltage settings, plus both support ide raid..
Can i get any suggestions on buying either of these?
Thanks

 

[oc jason]

I would say that the Abit will come put on top, it has been the best for quite awhile-good and stable, Gigabyte is definatley a good board but i dont think that they are Abit quality yet, Anywho that is my take on things

 

[toomnymods]

Thanks a lot for your comments, I cant wait to see a review on this motherboard if you know of any could you post the link here, i've been searching all the hardware sites with no luck..

 

[UnseenMenace]

I personally dont think the time is right to buy a DDR board as the performance gain over SDRAM is minimal especially now SDRAM rated as high as 180 MHZ has been released. There are also rumors of a new faster DDR RAM on the horizon that is not compatible with the current standard.. I personally think the technology has to mature a little more before I consider the move

But if I had to buy a board.. I would go with the Abit

 

[typer]

Check out the EPOX 8K7A+ before you buy anything. I have an ASUS A7V133 right now and want to upgrade to a DDR board. Personally I'm gonna wait a little bit to see what comes out. There are a couple of new chipsets coming out and I want to see how they perform before I buy anything. But if your thinking about buying right now I have heard a lot of good things about this new motherboard. I think there is a review on it on SocketA.com. It has all the things needed for overclocking (clock multiplier, memory speed selection up to 166FSB, and cpu voltage support. It is the lowest costing 760 board with raid. You could get it for around $130. SocketA.com called it the champion of the 760 boards. I think the only bad thing about it is it only has 2 DIMM slots.

 

[DaveB]

A Gigabyte with overclocking features?????

I don't think so. Gigabyte boards don't provide overclocking features. They are designed for stability at default speeds.

Abit will surely provide all the overclocking features you need. But with the usual low quality and questionable stability.

 

[toomnymods]

Hehe I'd research a little more bro look at this:
For those of you that have been looking for a AMD 760 chipset motherboard that can give you the power of DDR memory with the ability to overclock, the Gigabyte 7DXR is your first glimpse at this.

Using the dipswitches on the motherboard you can edit the multiplier, front-side bus and Vcore voltage. The multiplier gives you options from 5.0x to 12.5x and the Vcore options are from 1.5v to 1.85v in 0.025v increments. The FSB options are bit lacking on the dipswithces, however. There are only 8 options which are 100.99, 106, 114, 120, 133, 140 and 150 MHz. However, if you plan on overclocking via the FSB, the Bios offers a great range of available options. Anywhere from 100 MHz to 250 MHz in single MHz increments. While I am sure that 250 MHz is a bit of overkill, I was able to reach 153 MHz FSB stable using some new Corsair PC2400 DDR Memory. Overall, the highest I was able to reach (in clock speed) with the Gigabyte 7DXR motherboard is 1.56 GHz with a 1.33 GHz processor and air-cooling. Not a bad showing at all!
taken from this website: http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=84

 

[toomnymods]

This Abit board does support cpu multiplier functions fully in the bios using the "user defined settings" No onboard dipswitches for cpu multiplier I just found out this by calling thier technical support department. But still I cant get this motherbaord cause they didn't add the damn 4 holes that are supposed to be around the socket 462...I have the swiftech 462b cooler which needs these four holes to be fastened down. I thought this was a requirement for all motherboard manufactures using amd's socket 462 specifications!?!? Guess unless this Gigabyte board has them I'm back to the drawing board..Which sucks..I thought i was so close to having the PERFECT DDR BOARD.

 

[chainbolt]

I have my GA-7DXR at 1333@1610 and the maximum FSB is 169. of course at that speed, the board is not really stable anymore, but it shows how much potential this board has. I think with one the top-performing 1.33 Giga CPU, I could go to at least 1650 on the 7DXR. It has 3 DIMMs, 5 fan headers, a 4-channel creative sound chip, dual bios, of course RAID, a 3-phase power supply, and a lot of things more. The power connect or is not 100% ideally placed and it has a AMR slot, which is completely useless, all the rest is
perfect. ooos. a bit expensive though.

 

[toomnymods]

Quick question for the gigabyte owner... Does this new board have the 4 holes around the socket 462? if not i'm gonna wait till a board comes out that have these, i've already bought a swiftech 462b, not gonna throw 90 bucks down the drain,lol
Thanks,

 

[Xspringe]

The best DDR mobo out there right now is the Epox 8k7a. Why?
- Per lock it's faster then the a7m266 or the DXR.
- It allows VCORE OUT OF THE BOX to 2.25 volts.
- Rock stable: People are getting 160 mhz+ fsb on this board with normal timings.
- Tweakable to the bone
- It's dead cheap to, 130-140 bucks on pricewatch where the a7m266 is 160-170.

I really recommend the epox 8k7a.

 

[zoopa_man]

Gigabyte makes exelent boards. With the new easyTune3 even your cat could make changes to the FSB. I have a Gigabyte 6oxm7. It's an "older" socket 370 board but I have had great luck over clocking with it. For those of you who think gigabyte boards are bad for over clocking I would beg to differ with you. It is easy to change the multiplyer with the dip switches on the board and as I said before with easyTune3 you can change your FSB while your in windows. It's a cool program all you do is punch in the FSB that you want hit go and blaboom either it works or you crash. that simple. The only thing wrong with that is you have to keep in mind what your doing to the FSB affects the whole system (PCI, AGP speeds) so don't get caried away. But all in all the Gigabyte easyTune3 program works for me, it can work for you.

 

[zofodraziw]

7dxr vs kg7

hummm tough Q.

I have a 7dxr, simply because I could get one in two days..

only thing I'v noticed is that :::
the raid is lite....
that means no +

so th only options are
performance (striping)
redundency (mirroring)

not both..

that is ok, I bought the board for performance..

I have had no trouble oc'n it a bit..
up to 150 on the bus.. no extra cooling..
running a volcano 5 sink stock fan.
stock thermal pad (phase change)..
I am trying it all stock...
cpu rinning at about 49-51 C.
machine gets whenI go over that... It is the poor memory I have.
or it is the Nic that makes it mad...
or it is the AGP buss (running gforce 2 mx 64 meg)
4x enabled...

cpu can run up to 95 C before melt down...
Youch that is hoooottttttt but Mine will never get that hot.
I won't let it.

p.s. the 95 C max comes from the AMD people by the way.

the abit may have the raid limitations as well..

Upon reasearching the k266 and the 761 chip sets....
the k266 does not have the raid on thoes boards....
hummm...
the 761 does but only in the lite...

I think this is due to timing within the 686b and the 761 that allow the bus to the raid .... not sure....

 

[zofodraziw]

four mounting holes...

I have my GA-7DXR at 1333@1610 and the maximum FSB is 169. of course at that speed, the board is not really stable anymore, but it shows how much potential this board has. I think with one the top-performing 1.33 Giga CPU, I could go to at least 1650 on the 7DXR. It has 3 DIMMs, 5 fan headers, a 4-channel creative sound chip, dual bios, of course RAID, a 3-phase power supply, and a lot of things more. The power connect or is not 100% ideally placed and it has a AMR slot, which is completely useless, all the rest is
perfect. ooos. a bit expensive though.

yes

 

[zofodraziw]

p.s. processor is 1.44 yhxxx

Gigabyte makes exelent boards. With the new easyTune3 even your cat could make changes to the FSB. I have a Gigabyte 6oxm7. It's an "older" socket 370 board but I have had great luck over clocking with it. For those of you who think gigabyte boards are bad for over clocking I would beg to differ with you. It is easy to change the multiplyer with the dip switches on the board and as I said before with easyTune3 you can change your FSB while your in windows. It's a cool program all you do is punch in the FSB that you want hit go and blaboom either it works or you crash. that simple. The only thing wrong with that is you have to keep in mind what your doing to the FSB affects the whole system (PCI, AGP speeds) so don't get caried away. But all in all the Gigabyte easyTune3 program works for me, it can work for you.

 

[zofodraziw]

p.s. processor is 1.44 yhxxx

Gigabyte makes exelent boards. With the new easyTune3 even your cat could make changes to the FSB. I have a Gigabyte 6oxm7. It's an "older" socket 370 board but I have had great luck over clocking with it. For those of you who think gigabyte boards are bad for over clocking I would beg to differ with you. It is easy to change the multiplyer with the dip switches on the board and as I said before with easyTune3 you can change your FSB while your in windows. It's a cool program all you do is punch in the FSB that you want hit go and blaboom either it works or you crash. that simple. The only thing wrong with that is you have to keep in mind what your doing to the FSB affects the whole system (PCI, AGP speeds) so don't get caried away. But all in all the Gigabyte easyTune3 program works for me, it can work for you.

p.s. processor is 1.44 yhxxx