Going back to SiS!

[Nuno]

Ok, I left my momentary nforce2 temptation and I got a refund for the soltek nforce2 that worked for 30 seconds.

I decided to keep faith on SiS and I´m not regretting. I exchanged my XP2400+ for a XP2600 333 Mhz fsb and bough a almost offensive cheap Asrock K7S8X (SiS 746FX). Piece of cake to set up, WinXP tricked me a bit as after a flawless installation it wouldn´t start. Trick was start on safe mode and install SP1.

Anyway, after that cumbersome issue, same smoothness and stability as my former ECS K7S5A, I´m now slowly upping the fsb, just at 170 right now. Considering that´s 2 sticks of Crucial DDR 266 @ CAS 2.5, now that´s why it pays up to invest on good memory...

Just ran a couple of 3dfarts 2001 and 2003, all flawless and smooth. Seems good.

What seems even more curious is that there´s jumpers to set fsb from 100/133/166/200 Mhz And more - it works with proper AGP and PCI divisors http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwb/ulti...;f=42;t=000947

[Dr Mordrid]

Just to complete the story: ASROCK is ASUS's OEM line.

The 200 setting is there to accomodate upcoming AthlonXP's with a 400mhz FSB.

Dr. Mordrid

[Nuno]

Yes I know it´s Asus OEM, but it´s really incredibly cheap. I mean for 50€, how cheaper can you get?? I´ve seen NIC cards for 25€ and this mobo even has integrated LAN!!

I´m steadily upping the FSB, I´m now at 175 Mhz (2187 Mhz) and it has ran a round of Prime95 torture test with no sweat. For 2 stick of Crucial DDR 266, that´s very nice... A curious event was that for some reason, the motherboard doesn´t seem to like 174 fsb, because it won´t even boot , forcing me to clear CMOS. As I smell something was wrong, because it was rock stable at 173 Mhz, I tried 175, and there you go!

About the 200 fsb, my surprise was because this chipset wasn´t supposed to support 200 Mhz? So what´s the point for the 748FX?

Anyway, highly recomended for those on a tight budget and all the others who aren´t willing to spend more than twice as much for 5-10% benchmark performance...

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Dr Mordrid
Just to complete the story: ASROCK is ASUS's OEM line.

The 200 setting is there to accomodate upcoming AthlonXP's with a 400mhz FSB.

Dr. Mordrid

No, not Asus OEM. A separate entity for the low end market (an ECS killer if you want ). You can also get Asus OEM from Asus.

[GNEP]

Speaking of SiS and ECS (as we nearly were... ), I recently picked up an ECS K7SOM+ - fully integrated vga/sound/lan/etc (all SiS) and can be bought quite often with an "integrated" Duron 1200. All for about the same price that I paid for my MSI 745 Ultra - 50 quid incl VAT (and this included the CPU+HSF). Pretty good deal for the guts of a spare/surfing system.

Seems pretty damn stable so far.

Add old keyboard, old PSU, maybe a 20Gb HDD you have lying around, a stick of SDR or DDR (takes both), and it makes for a DAMN CHEAP machine. (who needs a case )

Only disadvantage? No AGP slot so it will always remain a damn cheap machine

[Dr Mordrid]

Originally posted by Kurt
No, not Asus OEM. A separate entity for the low end market (an ECS killer if you want ). You can also get Asus OEM from Asus.

Ok...it's an ASUS spinoff

The distancing Asus has been doing vs. Asrock is more marketing against ECS than anything else and I think their complaints about being associated with Asrock are a bit less than credible.

IMO there are some incredible bargains, and far more quality than expected, at the low end of the market of late. Amazing.....

Dr. Mordrid

[Nuno]

Ok, 176 fsb is the max; 177 gives Prime95 errors after a couple of minutes, despite apearing stable on deskop and a couple of 3d apps. 2.2 Ghz without any kind of voltage tweaking isn´t half bad for a XP2600.

And 176 Mhz 2.5-3-3 with 2 sticks of crucial ddr266 is very very good, I think

[GNEP]

The one thing that I didn't mention though is that when they put a Duron 1.2 "integrated" (screwed down heatsink >< integrated!) onto this ECS K7SOM+, they market it as an "AthlonPro 1800+"... - do you think AMD knows about this?

[DentyCracker]

What BIOS are you running Nuno

[raku]

i was planning to get one of those sis746fx boards myself. but only msi 746f ultra is available here. what concerns me is that reviews say that there are no multiplier adjustments available

[Nowhere]

Nuno, is there some way that you could check if zalman 6000 alcu fits on this board?

[DentyCracker]

I am using the Zalman 6000 (all copper version on mine)

[omegaRED]

Any oppinions on Asrock K7S8XE? I can get this one in Bulgaria for ... wait for it ... 60 eur Which is really a bargain, considering location and availability It should pair up nicely with my 2100+ @ 2.17Ghz and hopefully a R9600 (also a bargain for 130 eur)

[Nuno]

What BIOS are you running Nuno

I´m running 1.50, board came with 1.30 that gave me minor display corruption on boot up menu. No problems with 1.50. I know that there´s an official 1.70 bios and a couple of beta bios out there, but everything is going smooth with this one. Having 24 IRQ is nice too

what concerns me is that reviews say that there are no multiplier adjustments available

Yep. No multiplier, no voltages whatsoever and no memory timings (only CAS Auto-2-2.5-3) . It does have 1 Mhz steps FSB up to 248. Memory timings with stock bios are a bit relaxed too, wich really doesn´t bother me too much as there´s no way DDR266 CAS 2.5 memory can do 170+ fsb with agressive timings. C´mon, for 50€ you really can´t ask too much.

Nuno, is there some way that you could check if zalman 6000 alcu fits on this board?

Ok, DentyCracker has already replied on that, but I think you really can´t fit humongous heatsinks on this one. I´m using a Volcano7+ and it has a tight fit on the tall capacitor between the socket and the northbridge. Here, see for yourselves:


It does have the 4 mounting holes, though

Any oppinions on Asrock K7S8XE?

Yes. It´s basically the same board, same features, a bit more expensive, but it has the SiS 748 chipset that officially supports 400Mhz fsb Athlons, it´s a bit faster than 746fx due to an improved memory controller. It´s probably worth the difference.

[DentyCracker]

There is also a version 3.0 of the K7S8X on Asrock's site, completely different layout, only 5 PCI slots and some overclocking things (software)

http://www.asrock.com/product/product_k7s8x_r3.htm