Best mobo for Athlon & G400Max

[Phips]

I am thinking of switching to a Athlon
(my Cel300A/Abit BH6 rev1.0 combo is getting old).
Any suggestions for a trouble free motherboard to go with it ?

[HedsSpaz]

Depends on what features you want. The MSI 6195 aka K7Pro has gotten great reviews everywhere and it gives very good performance. Unfortunately it uses the old AMD750 chipset and thus doesn't have support for PC133 SDRAM, AGP4x or UDMA66. If you can live without those features then this is the board for you.
UDMA 66 and PC133 support however are very nice. AGP4x you probably would never notice the difference though.
If you REALLY want those extra features then there are a slew of new boards about to start hitting the market in force. The EPoX 7KXA and the Asus K7V are both readily available now. The Asus is definately the better of the two boards, but it does cost a significant amount more.
Myself I ended up gettting the EPoX board. I'm actually kinda sorry I did, I think I would have been better off with the MSI board, but I was being impatient for fun new things to play with. I would recomend getting the MSI board and then late this year, say christmas or so, either con someone into buying you a new mobo for christmas or getting one yourself. By that time there will tons more new features to play with. DDR SDRAM, UDMA 100, AGP4x will actually be usefull, and more important than any of those, the G800.

Good Luck whatever you decide.
Ian

[i-banzai]

The MSI K7PRO does support UDMA 66 !!

[HedsSpaz]

Sure enough it does. I should have known that, not sure how I missed it. I stand corrected.

Ian

[Thundrchez]

I've got an Asus K7M, and I'm not the happiest of campers with it.

I definitely have to give a thumbs down to the Asus K7V because of the irq screwup on it. They are giving a dedicated irq to the AMR slot, and pci slots 4 & 5 cannot have any irq, not even a shared one.

I would definitely wait for the first round of bugs to be worked out with the VIA chipsets. I want cutting edge technology, but I don't wanna be a guinea pig for bugs.

From what I've heard, the MSI mobo is the one to go with.

[Greebe]

I agree Asus is not the board(s) you want. They have by far more problems than any other SlotA MB out. MSI on the otherhand is by far the most stable and compatible SlotA MB's out. Though they aren't the most feature rich ones, generally lacking Agp4x, PC133, or a modem riser slot.

------------------
Designer of the first commercial Athlon mod.
Anyone up for an Athlon800+? Email me (epc@netdirect.net) for more information

3000 mips, 1.172 gflops @ 900 mHz 1:3 latency w/ active cooling
CPUmark99 75
FPU Winmark 4890

3Dmark 99 Max (8x6 16, 16, triple) PD5.41, Athlon@850mHz
8000
15181

[Phips]

Any preference between a AMD chipset and a VIA chipset MB ?
Should I wait for the PC-2100 (DDR) chipsets MB(s) to appear this summer ?

[merchant2112]

go with the msi boards, if you play the waiting game as some do you will always be waiting becuase something better faster cheaper is always comeing soon.

i wish amd would keep makeing chipsets they kick $ss at makeing chipsets.

[Muad'Dib]

The K7 - PRO is a great board. I'm very happy with mine. Virtually no problems with setting it up (actually none that weren't caused by my stupidity).

Dimitri

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Athon 700 @ 750
MSI K7-PRO (110 version)
G400 MAX
128 Megs PC100 RAM (gave the rest to my grandma)
20 gig Maxtor
6 gig WD
DVD-ROM (2nd gen)
RealMagic Hollywood + DVD decoder
Toshiba CDRW CRW8424E
SB Live! X-Gamer (ALMOST went for the platinum, but....)

Ok people, keep those UT excuses to suck rolling in. I need all the "help" I can get...

New Excuse: My computer runs it too smoothly. I can't figure out what I'm doing without the choppyness....

[Greebe]

MSI has anounced the K7X Pro MB. It's based in the VIA KX133 chipset, has an AMR slot, a huge amount of ram (they claim 1.5 gig's!), plus more little goodies to boot! Looks like a winner to me.