Motherboard & CPU recommendations please!

[SteveC]

Hi all,

My Epox 8K7a+ DDR Socket A motherboard has just given up the ghost and along with it took my 1Gig Athlon CPU (and a 1800+ chip I tried in it!), so I'm now in need of a DDR mainboard and CPU. I'm willing to think about P4 now too. I'd like to keep under £250 ($350) though, remembering I already have 2x256Mb DDR sticks of RAM.

Any ideas?

[Indiana]

Forget the P4 (wrote it in another thread, but I have both, a Northwood 2GHz and an AthlonXP1700+ and the 1700+ just beats the crap out of the P4@2GHz in nearly everything I do).

A good board for your DDR RAM would be the EPoX 8K3A, bundled with an AthlonXP>1800+, then apply good cooling, pump up the Athlons voltage (with the EPox you can use up to 2.2Volt!!) and oc the hell out of the CPU.

[Dr Mordrid]

ECS K7S5A (SiS735) has been rock solid here with an AthlonXP 2000+ and a gig of DDR266. $50 USD.

Another good one has been the Gigabyte GA-7VRX (KT333) with an AthlonXP 2000+ and a gig of DDR333. $120 or therebouts.

Weirdness: the ECS has actually performed better with the (classified) board that I've been testing.

(Classified) demands high PCI throughput and the VIA KT333 chipped Gigabyte just can't hack it and took a ton of tuning to get it working at all. The SiS735 chipped K7S5A rocks along without a hitch with hardly any tuning at all.

What was that about not being able to make silk purses from sows ears? Well....sometimes it can be done and ECS did it.

Dr. Mordrid

[Marshmallowman]

msi 745 ultra?
AMD power with via hassles

[Dr Mordrid]

That's why I'll go for ECS's K7S6A (SiS745) in my next AthlonXP/DDR333 system. They seem to have SiS's figured out.

Dr. Mordrid

[Greebe]

suggest what's below

[Wombat]

ECS seems to have the 735 figured out. I think it's too soon to tell if it's MSI's problem, or if the 745 has a flaw in it.

[Marshmallowman]

have there been problems with msi 745?

[RichL]

I put together a Duron 900 / ECS K7S5A for my dads PC. Apart from some initial issues which I eventually diagnosed as the ATI Radeon drivers being crap (& replaced the card with a Voodoo3000), it's been fine.
Of course my dad isnt exactly a heavy user.

[KvHagedorn]

Well.. If I were buying TODAY, I would probably get an Asus A7V333 Motherboard, AthlonXP 2100+, and 1GB Corsair XMS3000 DDR. I'd try unlocking the multiplier and going for 166x11 with this chip, and the memory should do a rock solid CAS 2-2-2 at 166 as well.

[SteveC]

Hi all,

Thanks for the input - Looks like I shouldn't go P4 then?

Been doing some research, and have the following choices:

The AMD Route:
<B>
Asus A7V333
Althon XP 1900+
</B>
or the Intel route:
<B>
Abit BD7-II RAID
P4 Northwood 1.7Ghz
</B>
Both come to the same price (Just under £250).

Out of the KT333 chipset boards, the Asus A7V333, Epox 8K3A and the Gigabyte GA7VRX are all quite similar.

The RAM I already have is 2x 256Mb PC2100 DDRs.

[Sasq]

Doc, I just got the ecs K7S6A and I'm whole hartedly impressed with it.

I've had no serious problems so far anyway

Dan

[Dogbert]

I heard that the Athlon MP's have thier multiplier unlocked.

I'd go for the Asus A7V333 as well

[Wombat]

I'd go with the Asus. You need no other reason than "it's not an Abit board."

[SteveC]

Asus A7V333 it is then