Ali MAGiK vs AMD 761, Mobo advice

[InVitro]

Ok I bought a new computer, with a Gigabyte motherboard, and it sucked. It would lock up in games. So I returned the mobo, and now I'm looking for a new one. I already have a T-Bird and 256mb of DDR 2100 RAM so I need to find a motherboard which is compatible with that.

I looked around on the net and found 2 Asus motherboards who were somewhat appealing to me.

AMD 761
http://www.asus.com/products/Motherboard/socketa/a7m266/index.html

Ali MAGiK
http://www.asus.com/products/Motherboard/socketa/a7a266/index.html

I heard some pretty dissapointing reviews about the Ali chips, but I'm still not sure about the AMD 761. I need a board thats stable. What do you guys think of the A7M266?
Anyone have any other mobo's they can suggest? Remember, they have to support a TBird and DDR ram.

Another question was, are Athlon \ Duron boards compatible with T-Birds? My gigabyte board was an Athlon \ Duron compatible, but my T-Bird worked... so im a little confused. If Athlon boards can't support T-Birds, then I wont be able to use the A7M266 anyway.

 

[eLiu]

If you intend to OC, Epox 8K7A is what I would recommend. It costs 135 shipped at www.newegg.com...this is like 50 dollars less than the A7M.

The Ali Magik consistently performs 5-10% below the AMD761. However, given that the AMD is only 15% over the performance of VIA133A (i believe), that 5-10% is a pretty hard hit.

Anyway, A7M is a good board, but it is seriously lacking in the areas of overclocking, and it is nearly 200.

Some people would recommend the Iwill KK266; im not sure as to whether or not it supports DDR RAM though. However, some reports from reviewers/users have said that the Iwill is less stable than the Epox.

hope this helps,
-eric

 

[splice]

The Epox 8K7A is a great board.

 

[InVitro]

That IWill KK266 is the mobo I was looking at, but it dosen't support DDR Ram
I'm going to check out the Expo board.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

The Ali DDR chipset gave NO improvement over a similar VIA KT133A solution, but the AMD 760 chipset showed a 10% improvement over the same KT133A set. The AMD761 northbridge is the heart of the 760 chipset. The southbridge is AMD766 or something like that, but all the major mobo manufacturers (including Epox) have changed the southbridge, to a VIA 685B I think, to save money. This southbridge doesn't affect the performance really. The northbridge is where the performance improvement is.

 

[eLiu]

ooh...and AMD760 has BETTER DDR performance than the Ali Magik- better RAM controller things in the chipset

-eric

 

[damocles]

The ALi DDR setup is generally faster than KT133a. It has come along way since it was released and most recent reviews show it to be quite quick and very stable


However since you have the DDR Ram already, go with a good 760/761 solution. Personally i like the DFI AK76-SN, but it is pretty unknown on these boards