Ok, so who is planning on getting this?

[High_Jumbllama]

Not going with a component that is 50% faster because the machine does not become 50% faster when the rest of the machine is unchanged will only serve to limit your machine.

Sometime my sentences do tend to get overly complicated.

[Rob(QG)]

Any reason why you prefer this to an nForce2 board? (other than hatred of all things nVidia )

That's what I have my eye on at the moment.

I suppose it does depend if you need the sound (I do as I am using the onboard sound on my MSI 745 Ultra at the moment.)

[WyWyWyWy]

Rob(QG): cost.

[Byock]

I have a bad taste for MSI boards. Bought an MSI KT400 loaded. Did not have a fan on the NB however. Had nothing but problems with it, took it back 2 days later, traded for Asus A7V8X. Haven't had a problem since.


(Yes, Leech, I know you told me to get the Asus board from the start. )

[DentyCracker]

I will be getting one of the MSI boards. I would not buy another VIA based mobo given their PCI bandwidth limitations. I have a creative labs card as well. On the contrary, I have had problems with the few ASUS boards I have come across. Not that I have anything against ASUS, as I've heard good things about some of their boards. It's about time MSI came out with their board. They tend to test things more than other companies so things tend to work right from revision 1.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Nowhere
ehhh...who cares about ddr when all you get is ~20% performance (well many actually, but not me ;P). but msi indeed is ok (but in form of K7T Turbo 2 here). It's cheaper to buy a new cpu I guess then to go mobo+new (and not cheap) memory

same reason why you'd buy a 2400MHz CPU instead of a 2000MHz one, _because_ of the 20% speed difference...

[Wombat]

Nah. DDR really <I>does</I> boost you about 10-20% in overall performance. That kind of processor jump might get you 5% overall. Might.

[Kurt]

err...for the time it takes to "open" windows, probably.

For any kind of work involving calculation the percentage is higher (given many variables like does the prog fit in cache, is it larger than the available memory, etc)...given it might not be exactly 20%, but it won't be 5 either...

[Nowhere]

well ok, it's clearly measurable, but not really perceivable (not on my buddy's system with XP1800 and ddr)
and it's cheaper to go from XP1700 to some faster cpu then to new mobo+512mb high quality ddr

and the most important thing: what is the point messing with your 100% stable and 100% fast enough system just for that increase? switching cpu is ok (not a problem at all), but new mobo? -> system reinstall. and from my point of view computers are for using them and not for messing in them

[Gurm]

Well, I'd probably opt for the IWill, simply because of the extra stuff shipping standard on it.

That said, whoever claimed that the KT133A's didn't have massive problems is clearly unenlightened. The KT133A's are horrible horrible evil little chips, only George's latency patch makes them even vaguely livable.

- Gurm

[WyWyWyWy]

Woo the MSI Granite Bay is quite expensive!!
136pounds (US$224) woops...

i.e. you can buy two 648MAX!!!

[Kurt]

and it's heavy too

[Chrono_Wanderer]

648MAX sounds nice (well not A7S8X anyways )

IMO granite bay came a bit too late...

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Kurt
err...for the time it takes to "open" windows, probably.

For any kind of work involving calculation the percentage is higher (given many variables like does the prog fit in cache, is it larger than the available memory, etc)...given it might not be exactly 20%, but it won't be 5 either...

Yeah, and what minor fraction of the time are you maxing out your CPU?

[Nowhere]

Gurm, believe it or not, but even Aureal Vortex 2500 works ok; maybe it's because of the late revision of chipset & board (got that one almost a year ago after i burned previous one with cpu).

Wombat (and to all speaking about ddr), but there's one thing system with sdr can do better: latency. I know, I know, there're also cl2 ddr, but majority of people around me use much worse memory. Not to mention that I have 512mb of high quality sdram for the price of cheap 256 mb ddr...