Athlon motherboard

[borat]

i am going to get an amd athlon 1.4 Ghz (t-bird).
i have the choice of the following motherboards as i am on a tight budget
:gigabyte GA-7VXT (via KT266)
:gigabyte GA-7DX (amd 761/via southbridge)

which is the best board for speed with stability.

[Indiana]

The KT266A boards are already beginning to ship (esp. the excellent EPoX 8KHA+ one) and are supposed to be at the same price as the slower KT266 ones. So I would strongly suggest you wait just a little bit longer and get a KT266A board.

To my knowledge there are no reported problems with the KT266 up to now except for bad USB oc'ability and even this is said to be better with the A revision mobos. I don't have any problems with the KT266 (EPoX 8KHA) and a TBird1.33C here.

The AMD/VIA combo is said to be problematic (even disrecommended by AMD itself) and especially uses the "feared" VIA 686B southbridge, so I'd rather not buy it.

[borat]

i live in England. Does anybody know where i can get a kt266A motherboard from. I am also having difficulty locating an EPOX motherboard anyone know where i can get one from.

[Taz]

The Epox board is available from OverclockersUK for £ 86.50 + VAT

Link

[Indiana]

Epox EP-8KHA+ DDR (Socket A AMD Thunderbird/Duron)
Utilising the latest VIA KT266a chipset the Epox 8KHA+ offers the fastest and most reliable AMD platform to date. Supporting all current Socket A CPU's from the original Duron and Athlon processors to the just released Athlon MP and Athlon XP processors. Providing upto 1.85v core voltage and easily accomodating the larger than life Alpha PAL8045 heatsink, coupled with the extreme quality of this board makes it an easy choice for the overclocker, with a simple volt-mod for the extreme overclocker not afraid of a soldering iron.

Don't have anything to add. Except maybe that £86 sounds a bit much to me. But then they seem to have those boards in stock already...

[Taz]

Originally posted by Indiana


Don't have anything to add. Except maybe that £86 sounds a bit much to me. But then they seem to have those boards in stock already...

Unfortunately prices in the UK are generally quite high.

[The PIT]

I've got the non plus version of the Epox, the new kt266a was announced the day it arrived However the board worked out of the box with a live card and hasn't crashed at all.

[Indiana]

I got the non "+" 8KHA as well and am extremely satisfied with this board even though VIA shortly afterwards announced the A - so you're not alone.
As I'm doing memory bandwidth constrained things (like vid-encoding), I'd not mind the ~10% gain you usually get in this type of app, but what I'd like to have the most is the working USB at high FSB speeds...
But then the KT266A gets only a ~5% speed increase in most real-world tests (not like the Q-III in 640x480x16 setting some sites use, where it can be +25%!), so it's not really a major gain.

[Nuno]

Have you considered the ECS sis735 board? Everyone seems to agree it´s rock stable, it performs between AMD760 and the KT266A (second fastest AMD DDR platform). It doesn´t have OC abilities or other fancy stuff but it´s price is simply amazing.

Even here it can be buyed by 70€+taxes

[borat]

i have already ordered the epox from overclockers and i cant seem to find the ECS motherboard here in england buts thanks a lot for all your response.
Fingers crossed that all goes to plan assembling the PC as its the first time i've ever done one from scratch.

[Indiana]

Good choice. Hope everything goes well. Ah yes, and when it arrives please bump up that FSB and post your Sandra mem-scores in this thread...

[borat]

i'm new to the overclocking game but i have heard that amd lock the FSB on their processors to prevent bumping up the speed. is this true. also can i do any permanent damage to my RAM by pushing up the bus speed? It is crucial PC2100 so how high should this be able to go?
I have also ordered a G550 with it so what kind of 3D performance can i expect out of this(G400 standard or what?), i am not going to be using the 3D features much but i'm just interested in how it will perform.
thanks.

[Indiana]

I think you mean the multiplier, yes this is locked with SOME TBirds (as it is with ALL current Intel CPUs) and it usually can be easily unlocked even by the not-so-experienced.

The FSB can't be locked cause it's more a function of the motherboard (well, of course it COULD be locked as awell, but this would require some extra logic and most probably lead to various incompatibilities).

So, in short: No you can set the FSB at what you want (of course only in the range supported by your mobo's chipset and the absolute maximum speed the CPU will operate stable at).

The KT266 is quite good at oc'ing (FSBs of 160+ are possible), but it had the disadvantage that the USB ports don't properly work at >140MHz FSB (>143 here). If you don't need USB (like me, most of the time), fine.
The KT266A your board is equipped with is said to have working USB up to FSBs well over 150MHz.