suggestion: ASUS A7V266-E vs. SOYO DRAGON+

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I am going to build a new machine and the only thing I am pretty much undecided on is which motherboard to go with. I am stuck between the ASUS A7V266-E and the SOYO Dragon+. ASUS seems to have a good reputation for quality and I dont' know alot about Soyo, but the reviews I have read on both boards are excellent. Any suggestions on which one to go with.
 

bront

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the Soyo has some nice extras, but ASUS is a very good board maker. My sudgestion might simply be to go with the cheeper one, as they are both high quality boards.

Chesnuts roasting on an open CPU
Bill Gates nipping at your wallet
 

jiffy

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So true about support. I e-mail Asus. I needed the CPU supporter for the Slot A. I told them what it was I needed by name, described it, just shy of sending a picture of it to them. They said we don't think you need one, there's a slot on the board.
Didn't the Soya or what ever it was called whip Asus in the 13 board test? Asus been letting me down, so now I don't care what name is on the board as long as it's fast. But I still like Abit and hope there new board does well, but as soon as ATA133 come out it will be back to the drawing board.

defrage is child's play-fdisk
 
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Cannot agree more, that is why I switched from A7M266 to MSI K7T266 Pro 2 but I can honestly say I did find an ASUS Phone # and was able to call them....they still were clueless. BTW, I posted a LONG KT266A post on my thinking of going back to ASUS but after doing some reading I think I'll give the SOYO a try. The worst thing the MSI has seems to be tech support, their site is loaded with complaints and gripes. None of the support on the cd work under XP...not even the VIA driver software. Hence the reason I HATE software installs....FDISK on the MSI board had to be done even....the XP software format sux.

Anyway, I extensively investigated the SOYO and I'm about to cruise over to www.tcwo.com for a board. Award BIOS will be back again, whew, I HATE the AMI bios.

Hope this helped a bit..

Bob
 
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One thing I did note: One year warranty on Soyo, and not as of yet in AMD's list of approved mobo's. As for the list of AMD approved, I don't give it much credit as the MSI board sux even compared to my son's A7M266. I supposedly "upgraded" to the MSI K7T266 Pro 2 but DOWNgraded in bios and functionality. ASUS is good, 3 year WARRANTY, just tech support has long hold times and many clueless people. I 'hope' SOYO is better...
 

Take_Out

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Go with the Soyo over the ASUS. I will as soon as the DRAGON ULTRA with SIS645 chipset is released for the P4 socket 478. By the way,Soyo switched to HiPoint for raid with the ULTRA (better cause you can run them like additional IDE channels). I have talked to two people who own them and they have nothing but praise for them. If I was to buy a high performance KT266A today, it would be the Soyo, and the only ones that would compete is the ABIT or EPOX, maybe the GIGABYTE.
If you aren't looking for high performance, I picked up a Gigabyte GA-7DX(AMD761 w/Via south) at Newegg.com for $45 refurbished (they are tested 0, unlike new cards). Didn't have anything but the board, however the manual and all drivers were available at their site. Couple that with my $38 Duron750 and Crucial memory DDR2100, $33 at the time, and I gots lotsa go for no mo, HEH. I hereby patent that saying: lotsa go for no mo. Yeah, I am nutz.
CRAZY LIKE AN IDIOT.
Anyway, for Athlon and high performance, the Soyo is the best I have had evidence for.
Good Luck, Take-Out

"We killed OUR Hitler" - attributed to Paul McCartney (If so, then well done, sir)
 

pvsurfer

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By the way,Soyo switched to HiPoint for raid with the ULTRA (better cause you can run them like additional IDE channels).
Fact: the A7V266-E's Promise controller can be configured (by way of a jumper on the board) for RAID or 'normal' IDE operation.

While I don't see much use for the Soyo's smart card reader the two boards are otherwise similarly equiped. The Soyo can be had for about $30 less than the Asus, so unless you happen to believe that Asus boards are superior quality-wise, I just don't see a compelling reason to get the Asus!

<b>God bless the <font color=red>U</font color=red><font color=white>S</font color=white><font color=blue>A</font color=blue></b>