AMD motherboard with RAID

[docknload]

There are several mobos that I am looking at, one from IWILL, MSI, ABIT, and GIGABYTE. The ABIT isnt here yet and the GIGABYTE seems seriously back ordered. Does anyone have any suggestions as to which should get? They all come in under $200 and I will be using the TBIRD 1.4 or higher depending on what is out, along with 256MB DDR PC2100 RAM. I already have harddrives (3) from Maxtor (2x20GB) and Western Digital (1x40GB). Please provide any advice that you can.

IWILL KA266-R
MSI K7T-266 Pro-R
ABIT KG7-RAID
GIGABYTE GA-7DXR

Thanks in advance.
Peace

 

[LXi]

How about the Epox 8K7A+? The K7T266 Pro-R is also a good option.

 

[NelsonMuntz]

I would definitely suggest a motherboard with the AMD 761 northbridge since that is the only northbridge that has shown improvement over the KT133A chipset in bench testing. This leaves you with the Abit and the Gigabyte. Both of which you said you had problems finding currently. Why is Epox EP-8K7A+ not a consideration? This board is inexpensive and has tons of features. It seems to be readily available as well. Newegg has it here for $148. That would be my choice.

 

[wfbberzerker]

epox 8k7a+
its a really good board, and everyone recommends it (make sure you get the "plus" thats the one with raid, the one without the plus has ide)

 

[Athlon4all]

Epox 8K7A+

P.S. In a RAID array using those Hd's, the 40GB will become a 20GB because of the difference in sizes so the array will be 60GB not 80GB.

 

[LXi]

Hm... responding to a previous comment, the KT266 also made great improvements over the KT133A, in fact, a recent Abit KG7, the supposedly AMD760 god, only managed to edge out the MSI K7T266 Pro on most benchmarks. It's also worth noting that the KT266s dont use 686B, which could be big plus.

 

[docknload]

Thanks everyone. What distinguishes one over the other in the list of EPOX, ABIT, and GIGABYTE. Assuming they were all within my budget and all available? I am kinda one of those guys that likes to have lots of information, so email me if you have a lot to say.

EPOX EP-8K7A+
ABIT KG7-RAID
GIGABYTE GA-7DXR

BTW, the two 20's will be in RAID and the 40 will store other data like backup stuff on regular IDE. But thanks for the comment.

Peace

 

[LXi]

The Epox and Abit both use HighPoint controllers, the Gigabyte uses Promise. Epox and Abit both have 6 PCI slots, Gigabyte has 5. Epox and Abit are better for tweaking, the difference is Abit has everything jumperless, while you have to do some jumpers/DIPs with the Epox. I think the Epox makes the most sense because 1) it's available, 2)it's cheap, 3)it's got everything you want on it.

 

[Courtland]

Epox, fast, stable, good oc board, as proven by myself and a lot of other users.

Gigabyte, also a good board, however, impossible to find right now, and the new rev 1.0s are having problems.

kg7 raid, just becoming available, not yet tried, probly hard to find, could be good, might not be...

I would go with the epox, cheaper than the others, faster than the others in most tests/reviews, proven, easy to find.

 

[docknload]

Thanks to everyone. I have a question for LXi and anyone else that might now. Is the HighPoint controller on the Abit and Epox better than the Promise controller on the Gigabyte? Also, how is the built in sound on the Epox and Gigabyte? I won't be doing a whole lot of gaming, but I listen to music like you wouldnt believe.

Thanks again

BTW, I don't plan on overclocking yet, but I may in the future. I also plan to use the RAID features so I need to know which RAID controller is the most reliable.

LATA

 

[Courtland]

The one on the gigabyte is a promise lite controller, so without hacking the bios you cant change its stripe size, which can improve performance, but you can on the highpoint. If you read the anand raid article, very long, I just read the benchmarks, from what I can see the highpoint is the fastest controller there is for the most part. As far as the sound, the gigabyte uses a creative based chip which gives you 2 speaker outs for soround sound type systems, versus the epoxes ac97 codec based single speaker out card.