Stable Motherboard for AMD?

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Raystonn

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Apr 12, 2001
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What would be the AMD system equivolent of an Intel i850 chipset motherboard? We are talking about something that is 100% stable, a great performer, but does have to really overclock all that well.

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
The ECS K7S5A (SIS 735 chipset) is an awesome board if you get a good one. There is a bios that has a number of different FSB's if you want to overclock.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>
 
I would say it has to be the IWill XP333. It's probably the best motherboard for overclocking! It's based on the extremely stable ALi Magik1 (revision C)! At it's default 266MHz speed, it's nearly as fast as a KT266A-based motherboard, at 333MHz, it blows it way, and at 400MHz, it would probably blow it away even more! As long as you have an unlocked CPU and RAM that supports the 333MHz or 400MHz, you won't be overclocking to greatly improve performance!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
If you get a good one? Exactly what does that mean? Is there something wrong with these boards? If so then I cannot use it. It must be guaranteed to work in a completely stable fashion. If the 'bad board' rate is higher than the norm for the industry I cannot really trust it.

Is there another?

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
I'm happy with my Athlon 1800+ running on an nForce (K7N420). It's 100% stable, and fast. Processor not overclocked regarding the scores below. Overclocked my Gainward GeForce3 Golden Sample to Ti500 reference speed to simulate how the system would perform with a top-of-the-line GeForce3 Ti500.

<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare.shtml?2215701" target="_new">10,886 3DMarks 2000</A>
<A HREF="http://gamershq.madonion.com/compare2k1.shtml?2322002" target="_new"> 8,137 3DMarks 2001</A>

Caveats: I'm running Windows XP. Haven't really work with Windows ME to much on this platform. Couldn't get 3DMarks 2001 running under Windows ME. But I think somebody found a solution in the MSI forum.

All I can say is that it works great for Window XP. Watch out for the sloppy printed MSI manual (it's wrong concerning the JBAT1 jumpers for clearing CMOS), refer to the corrected version on-line at MSI site.

Oh yeah, one more thing with the K7N420 board - missing POWER LED headers (at least the current versions).<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by MadCat on 01/04/02 06:44 PM.</EM></FONT></P>
 
I would say it has to be the IWill XP333. It's probably the best motherboard for overclocking! It's based on the extremely stable ALi Magik1 (revision C)! At it's default 266MHz speed, it's nearly as fast as a KT266A-based motherboard, at 333MHz, it blows it way, and at 400MHz, it would probably blow it away even more! As long as you have an unlocked CPU and RAM that supports the 333MHz or 400MHz, you won't be overclocking to greatly improve performance!
Click to expand...
I am just looking for the basic motherboard in a system that does not need to be overclocked. It must be 100% stable and a fairly good performer at default system specifications. The motherboard you list goes for $99 on PriceWatch. Is this a typical price for a motherboard with the features I requested?

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
Yes, I would have to say the IWill XP333 is the most stable board available for the Athlon (XP). It is also the fastest board by far when paired with 333MHz or 400MHz (if can find any) DDR RAM. Yes, that's a pretty typical price.

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
It's the typical price of that motherboard, but lower than normal.

The ECS K7S5A is a good board, but they have terrible quality control. Matisaro went through 5 boards before finally getting one that worked. That's not a problem with the SiS735 chipset, just a problem with ECS.

Are you building an AMD test/reference machine, Ray?

<font color=orange>Quarter</font color=orange> <font color=blue>Pounder</font color=blue> <font color=orange>Inside</font color=orange>
 
Alright, new question: Say you had just bought an Athlon 1.67GHz (XP 2000). There are no Retail versions available as of yet. You wanted to try your hand at overclocking so you need a decent heatsink/fan. What heatsink/fan would you get and how much would it cost?

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
I would say an Abit KG7. It's not the fastest, but it's been rated as one of the most stable. If you're willing to consider the VIA KT266A, you could go for the Asus A7V266-E.

Kelledin
[dave@discovery ~] kill -9 1
init: Just what do you think you're doing, Dave?
 
The IWill XP333 supports the 1:5 PCI divider and the 1:6 PCI divider, so you are not overclocking your PCI and AGP bus when your FSB at 333MHz or 400MHz. If you don't want to overclock your processor either then you'll need to unlock the CPU and lower the multiplier. You'll also want RAM that's rated to run that high. With all that in place, you won't have a problem with stability but you'll have a significantly faster system with RDRAM bandwidth and DDR RAM latency!

AMD technology + Intel technology = Intel/AMD Pentathlon IV; the <b>ULTIMATE</b> PC processor
 
The most recent DDR I can think of, is the new PC 3000 running at 366MHZ. But I have not seen any that can do 400MHZ so far, which means 200MHZ SDR, and that is quite fast! Most likely PC3300.

As for Ray, I dunno what you're asking us but this is funny, seeing as you are most likely always working on Intel systems!
Whatever it is, unless a quiz to test results between both CPUs, we're pretty much gonna have mixed results!
IMO the Asus A7V-E is an incredibly stable mobo with the KT266A chipset. The Epox EP-8KHA+ is the best performer, but I dunno if anyone has had stability problems with it. It costs not much though, less than Asus.
As for chipset, some will say Ali, some will say KT266A, some will say SiS735, so I told you, it's very mixed!

--
The other day I heard an explosion from the other side of town.... It was a 486 booting up...
 
"... As for chipset, some will say Ali, some will say KT266A, some will say SiS735, so I told you, it's very mixed! ..."

Don't forget nForce. I have a positive experience with it.
 
How about a decent heatsink/fan for an overclocker? Which one would you get and how much would it cost?

-Raystonn


= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
 
By now you know that there are a myriad of HSF's out there. Here's a good site with comparisons:

<A HREF="http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm" target="_new">http://www.dansdata.com/coolercomp.htm</A>

Regarding the ECS board, I got one and it's flawless, but there are a number of people who have complained about the quality control. It's a hit or miss situation it would seem from the forums I've visited. Nonetheless, I think the new motherboards sound more promising. The iwill XP333 would probably be something to look into.

<font color=red>God</font color=red> <font color=blue>Bless</font color=blue> <font color=red>America!</font color=red>
 
Passive HSF? GlobalWin CAKII-38
really aggressive overclock try a watercooling solution ( a nice advantage is the quiet)

Best motherboard? Good question. Depends on who you talk to. The ECS board is a nice board. Granted you do see alot of post on this board with problems, but bear in mind it is the hottest selling board out there right now, so this is bound to happen, IE. the more boards sold the more problems you see. Same happens with the IBM HDD's. Largely do to this board ECS now is the top motherboard maker in terms of volume. There next board with the sis 745 chipset is already released, just waiting for it to appear in the market place. Epox will also release a board this quarter ( along with many other board makers this time) based on this chipset. There is a guy posting over in the AMD forumns
who uses 30 of these boards a month and claims his return rate is no greater than any other board he has used. You are going to get the best benchmarks from a VIA 266a board, but beware, VIA has still not figured out how to make a southbridge and the PCI issue is a chipset flaw. Ali is good, stable but so-so performer ( we are talking stock speeds here). Nforce is another option, I cannot comment on this board as of yet for it is the one I have not yet tested myself.

I have seen your preference to Samsug RDRAM, and the reason I bring this up is if you are actually going to build a AMD system, I highly suggest you go with Micron DDR and not Samsung ( www.crucial.com).

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!
 
VIA KT266A / VIA VT8233 another VIA chipset board with the pci bus problem. Furthermore, I will never own another ABIT board, I think they are highly overrated and there RMA process sucks. I have an older abit ka7 that has gone bad and needs replacement ( still under warranty) ABIT wants 25 dollars for shipping and handling to fix the board that is bad do to a design defect that is there fault! ( they used sup-par caps, and now those caps are leaking die-electric)

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!
 
you have certainly reason.
i have an Asus A7V133 Raid TB(C) 1.333@1.533 1.75@1.85 512Mo Infineon CAS2
i know, for the moment it's yet a little oc but it's AMD
lol



if you know you don't know, the way could be more easy.
 
well at least caps is something you could do yourself, assuming they are not those silly surface mount can types. Probably you could get what you need in town, do the work yourself, and save a couple bucks, not to mention the time it takes to ship the thing to opposite corners of the globe.

But yeah that is pretty weak. Is the low ESR cap market still hopping? Maybe that is why. We were paying QUITE a surplus for tantalums recently, since I don't do purchasing that may have changed now without me knowing. Literally several dollars per board could be saved by buying the crummy grey market stuff.
 
I had to pay shipping once, but it was one way, seems like their getting you both ways. I've had good luck with Abit, my first was the kt7a-Raid, then bought another, and now have the kr7a.
It's tought going back to a copany once they let you down, which was the case with me and Asus.
Thanks for your thoughts.

Complicated Nit Picker
 
Yeah I looked into it. Thing of it is there is no less than 20 caps that would need to be replaced ( they are part of the voltage regulator). I trust my soldering skills but, that is just a little to much room for error for me.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!
 
I was told that this is standard Abit policy, I was shocked, especially considering this was a well known problem with this board. Asus is no pearl when it comes to customer support either, but I do think ( and this is my personal opinion) that they to tend to put out a higher quality product.

It's not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you!
 
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