266 or 333 motherboard?

[Crankydog]

I'm building a new computer from scratch soon and am really wondering if buying a 333mhz motherboard (Via KT333 chipset for AMD XP) is really worth it?

Speed wise, 333Mhz boards with 333Mhz memory chips have 1-5% speed gain on 266Mhz ones (KT-266A) but have a significantly higher price.

So why should I buy a 333 board?

I don't need onboard sound, onboard graphics, RAID or onboard ethernet. I'm not planning on getting any USB 2.0 devices (or when it happens I'll buy a USB 2.0 card).

I won't do any o/c on the cpu (though the video card is another story).

So what's left?

 

[kinji55]

I asked the same question too.. let me know what you find out..

 

[Boonesmi]

if the athlonxp switches to a 166mhz fsb (333) the kt333 chipset will support it, and the kt266a doesnt
currently all socketa cpu's come in either 200 or 266 versions, but its rumored that a fsb increase is coming soon

 

[kinji55]

but that means none of the XP cpu currently has the 333 bus? not even the 2200+ ?

so.. this board is only for people who want to buy the new cpu later and upgrade.. i don't know if i have that much cash to upgrade when the 333fsb cpu comes out.

 

[Vette73]

I went to newegg.com and the price difference between the Cheapest KT266a and the KT333, is less than $10. BUT the KT333 board has Raid, ethernet, and on-board sound. Just one of those is worth at least $10.

I would just spend the extra $7 and go with the ECS K7VTA3-RAID.

It will save you some money and should be upgradable in the long haul.


Skimp on the CD-RW drive, or the CPU, But get a good and current board, as it is the whole nervous sysetm to the other parts

 

[kinji55]

I hear what your saying. yup.. .. how is ecs boards? are they good? i will have to look it up. Does the PC2700 ram need to go in pairs? did i say that correctly ? (pc2700) i think so.

 

[Soulkeeper]

no, ddr memory don't need to be installed in pairs with the kt333 motherboard

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: kinji55
I hear what your saying. yup.. .. how is ecs boards? are they good? i will have to look it up. Does the PC2700 ram need to go in pairs? did i say that correctly ? (pc2700) i think so.

Abit has ECS make some of its boards. ECS I think is the largest OEM maker of Motherboards. So they should be OK

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Boonesmi
if the athlonxp switches to a 166mhz fsb (333) the kt333 chipset will support it, and the kt266a doesnt
currently all socketa cpu's come in either 200 or 266 versions, but its rumored that a fsb increase is coming soon

He's right, My 8K3A has the 1/5 divider which allows you to run synchronously with the 333DDR ram. I'm running a 1600+@1.75ghz, 166FSB, default Vcore, Crucial 2100DDR@167mhz(334DDR) cas2 and the Vcore dips to 1.71 under load but stays solid. IMO there is no reason to choose the older KT266A chipset when the price difference is nominal and the KT333 has a better feature set.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Well, If you read the Value Guide of Anandtehc.. You can look at this guide and it does have a boost in performance, and since both 266 and 333 cost almost the same, you should go for the 333. It depends on what you are going to use your computer for. Look at the guides in anandtech.

 

[Crankydog]

After re-reading the performance review, maybe I'll go with a 333Mhz board but with DDR266Mhz SDRAM memory.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You can get the Crucial through the Hot Deals forum for 15% off, free 2nd day shipping, and sometimes a 10-20$ coupon. I've seen quite a few people running the 2100 DDR@ 2700 and above like myself.