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A7V8X VS. A7V333 - Which would you buy?

B

bfletcher24

Senior member
I have narrowed it down to these two boards, but i can't decide on which one.

I read an article on how the KT400 isn't a very good chipset and that the 8X AGP is actually crippled to 4X AGP. Isn't the KT400A chipset coming out before the end of the year? The A7V8X has a lot of bells and whistles (gigabit ethernet, serial ATA, Firewire, etc..) but none of that will benefit me right now.

On the other hand, the A7V333 is cheaper, but I have read on this board about people having problems with it. Here are my specs, PLEASE help me decide -

Athlon T-Bird 1.44 w/266 FSB
Leadtek Winfast Titanium GF 3 Ti500
SB Live MP3
512 MB PC2100 DDR RAM (Mushkin)
Netgear FA312 NIC
Creative Labs DSI 56k Modem
Maxtor 40GB 7200 ATA100 Hard Drive
 
If you don't need a lot of bells and whistles, then I would suggest that you not even bother with ASUS. They are well known for including a lot of features standard on their boards at a price premium. Go with a more bare bones board and save some money. ASUS isn't the only motherboard manufacturer who can make a quality board. They do make some nice innovations, and their boards are always nice and stable. However, there are plenty of other competent manufacturers out there who can create quality boards at a better price point, without all the extra features that many users won't take advantage of.
 
Originally posted by: Bovinicus
If you don't need a lot of bells and whistles, then I would suggest that you not even bother with ASUS. They are well known for including a lot of features standard on their boards at a price premium. Go with a more bare bones board and save some money. ASUS isn't the only motherboard manufacturer who can make a quality board. They do make some nice innovations, and their boards are always nice and stable. However, there are plenty of other competent manufacturers out there who can create quality boards at a better price point, without all the extra features that many users won't take advantage of.
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Can you give me some suggestions? 😀

 
Can you give me some suggestions? 😀
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I can sum it up in 1 word and 1 model number for a rather bare but stable motherboard: EPoX 8KHA+

Been running for months and no problems with the motherboard (only one of those stupid OEM PSU's dieing on me)

EPoX produce some of the best motherboards out there, take a look. Im not familiar with their latest work though.
 
I have the A7V333 with onboard sound and I'm happy. Asus has a reputation for stability and reliability. I have a slightly "newer and better performing" system than you and when I had to make the same choice, I thought back to all the times I bought for the future and ended up not taking advantage of it. The new features on the A7V8X are basically first generation, and when they become popular a newer generation will appear. The only feature it has over the A7V333 (that you can use NOW) is the 8x AGP, so you would have to be buying one of the newest cards sometime in the next year. This also means that your power supply will have to have enough wattage for the video card, since the new ones need to be connected directly to the power supply.
 
Originally posted by: BachelorNumber1
I have the A7V333 with onboard sound and I'm happy. Asus has a reputation for stability and reliability. I have a slightly "newer and better performing" system than you and when I had to make the same choice, I thought back to all the times I bought for the future and ended up not taking advantage of it. The new features on the A7V8X are basically first generation, and when they become popular a newer generation will appear. The only feature it has over the A7V333 (that you can use NOW) is the 8x AGP, so you would have to be buying one of the newest cards sometime in the next year. This also means that your power supply will have to have enough wattage for the video card, since the new ones need to be connected directly to the power supply.
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Very interesting. Thanks!

I think I may consider the Epox 8K5A2+ also...96 bucks with RAID and onboard LAN....you can't beat that 🙂
 
Epox 8K5A2+ is an excellent choice. I personally would stay away from the KT400 considering the KT400A is already on the way and it's not really any faster than a good KT333 board..generally less than 2% faster.
 
I think I may consider the Epox 8K5A2+ also...96 bucks with RAID and onboard LAN....you can't beat that
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Excellent choice,IMHO a better motherboard then the Asus 🙂.
 
I've got an Asus A7V8X (See Comments on new high-end system) and non-overclocked BIOS 1004 I think it's decent, but not great. Asus still has a lot of work on BIOS's as their BIOSes have been getting worse not better (that's definitely not a good thing). If you want to overclock don't run an A7V8X. If I went out and bought a new motherboard right now for the system, I would probably go with an Epox 8K5A2 (The + is IDE RAID).
 
Oh, I would like to add for anyone who hasn't heard. Don't go with the A7V8X if you want IDE RAID. Only one HD can be connected to the blue ATA RAID connector (if one hooks up a second drive it is not detected), one supposedly has to use Serial ATA for the other RAID devices. Last I heard one cannot get ATA to Serial ATA converters without a controller that comes with them, and the A7V8X does not come with them. A7V8X owners have been trying to get them (and been trying Asus) with no luck making a number of unhappy customers. I have not seen anyone successfully get IDE RAID working on the A7V8X.
 
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