AMD + VIA Finally Impress Me.

[novon]

I have been through two AMD + VIA systems in the past, and I always went back to Intel because the AMD system was unstable or too buggy. Well, I finished building my new computer today (See Sig for Specs), it's a KT266A + Athlon XP system, and I must say, I am impressed. I spent less than a comprable Intel system, and the stability is superb, all it took were some file updates. I still think for the average joe, they would be better off with an Intel system since it doesn't require tweaking to run right, but for those who are willing to spend the time, AMD all the way...I am a new AMD long term customer unless Intel can go faster for cheaper.

Thanks

 

[Mats]

^^^^ "Choice excellent my friend."

 

[TunaBoo]

I dont want a flame war, but intel boards DO require chipset updates to run right.

 

[Pabster]

And so do VIA chipset boards, unfortunately -- be they for an Intel or AMD platform.

The hell with VIA. They ain't getting another red cent of my hard earned money

 

[Budman]

<< I dont want a flame war, but intel boards DO require chipset updates to run right. >>



Unless you're running XP,it's pretty much got all the drivers of the current chipsets in there allready.

 

[Idoxash]

VIA sucks and they will never be as stable as they need to be.....I think my next mobo will be a sis base besides this kt133 that don't think
about running at that speed 101 is as fast and as stable as you going to get but i went out and got it cause of 133fsb but instead i got
something that was crap that was the last time i buy one no matter how much better there chip sets gets........may they burn!

 

[soulm4tter]

via owns, i've been a via fan since i upgraded my PIII/BX platform to Athlon/KX133 way back in the day.

 

[Mats]

"The hell with VIA. They ain't getting another red cent of my hard earned money "


Your loss good buddy. I'll just continue being stoked with my rock solid stable fully compatible VIA.


<<<< I dont want a flame war, but intel boards DO require chipset updates to run right. >>



Unless you're running XP,it's pretty much got all the drivers of the current chipsets in there allready. >>


Of course it does, as with just about everything else. Updates are for compatibility issues aswell as boosting performance. Being the owner of a Intel platform you obviously can't be too worried about performance.


[edit] ^^^^ This is a general statement adding to what was said already. VIA marketing does suck. [/edit]

 

[elkinm]

I have had no problems with the KT133/KT133A boards I've tried and I heard the KT266A is stable and fast so I will stay with VIA for now.

 

[GoldenTiger]

My two AMD systems that I built ran fine right after construction without any tweaking other than installing the 4-in-1's... you don't need to "tweak" unless you want to OC a ton !

 

[LXi]

Boy, do we really need to get rid of some hate-VIA zealots around here...

 

[Idoxash]

Don't get me wrong my abit kt7133 mobo has been a cool board but its bad that the chip that says 133 can't get pass 101 without stable
probs.....and all thoe the kt7a boards been great there still probs with via the fact is why stay with them when there better....and i'm not
a via hater...just wish they make something that works.

 

[dukdukgoos]

Had a KX133, no probs. Had a KT133a, no probs. Have a KT266a, no probs. VIA gets a bad rap. I'll stick with them as long as the performance is top-notch.

 

[thedarkwolf]

My abit kt7 133 can hit 114mhz fsb stable so I think you just got unlucky. I had to back it down to 112mhz since adding a second stick of memory but thats still pretty good.

 

[fow99]

I don't know why people is still so hard with VIA. Yes they made some bad chipset years ago for PIII or Celeron. But their Duron/Athlon chipset have been pleasing to use. I had a Duron/KT133 combination and it was fast and reliable. And now I have two system both based on KT133A ( one Athlon 1.2 + Iwill KK266 and the other a Mobile Duron 800 + KT133A laptop) and I have no complaining about them. When your system become unreliable, don't always blame the hardware. If you are still using the M$ Windows 98 trash, you bound to deal with lock and reboot stuff. ............

 

[Aelus]

i also don't understand why people are complaining about via, the drivers are extremely mature these days (they have been for about 1-2 years now). Let me list the via chipsets i've run without problems

MVP3 on a soyo 5EHM motherboard, the very first revision of the chipset/board, gave alot of issues a long time ago, but now, it's my new server, it runs a k6-3 at 300, with 32mb edo, i had to clock down the chip from 400, because the PSU comes from an old crappy 386 case, and it couldn't power up at 400 or at 350. (it's also powering 2 7200 rpm harddisks), it has been up for about 14 days now, without any issues.

KX133, it still works fine/crashless at a friends place. it was on a first revision Epox 7K8A

KT133, abit kt7, extremely stable motherbord, ran an overclocked duron 700@950 without any issues at all.

KT133A, after 2 bad abit kt7a's, i went with an asus a7v133, nice motherboard, but WAAAAAAAAAAY too expensive for what it offered. Never going to get abit either, too expensive, and too many DOA's.

KT266A, just installed my epox 8kha+ last week. It took ONE reboot to fully install everything, works suberbly.

i've been through 3 motherboards now since i reinstalled windows, and i must say, i love my vias.

Aelus

 

[cookieman]

Hi!

I owned a KT7 Abit board (VIA). No problems whatso ever (until I dished that SoundBlaster 128 to the right slot and right bios)...
I bought a KT7A and that was running fine until now.

Some are lucky some are not.

Cheers,

 

[fow99]

<< Hi!

I owned a KT7 Abit board (VIA). No problems whatso ever (until I dished that SoundBlaster 128 to the right slot and right bios)...
I bought a KT7A and that was running fine until now.

Some are lucky some are not.

Cheers, >>


But you can't blame your personal bad luck on a whole company who at the most of time is providing satisfactory product, can you? Is there not a single bad Intel CPU/Chipset? Even the most stable chipset - BX has some broken ones.

 

[cookieman]

Hi!

After I resolved the SB issue the KT7 ran flawlesly with it!
I do not blame anybody
With little patience (bug hunt in forums and FAQ's for 1 day) and some updated drivers my first VIA board ran fine.

But now at least I'm aware of what can go wrong with my board. But the regular user can be in dificulty then... But if the user got it's setup preinstaled and tested then he should notice no differencies between VIA and Intel boards. I guess.

Cheers,

 

[Mem]

On my second AMD/VIA system now and it`s rock stable again anybody that says VIA sucks does not know what they are talking about there`re lots of happy owners of this combo just like the other chipsets etc .

I`ve finally gone over to XP OS as well that`s taking alittle longer to get use to then my old WIn98 OS1 .

 

[Pabster]

Mem wrote:

"anybody that says VIA sucks does not know what they are talking about there`re lots of happy owners of this combo just like the other chipsets etc"

Oh, I know what I'm talking about. VIA is suck, plain and simple. They've never been able to release a stable, rock solid chipset. They end up releasing a "new revision" of the same chipset which supposedly fixes everything from the previous (usually only a couple months apart, of course) and it ends up breaking something else. Sure there's a lot of people who will say they haven't experienced "any" problems with their VIA-based mainboard. But I'll guarantee you that either they didn't realize the VIA chipset was at fault when they did have a problem, or they're lying through their teeth. And to this day you will find no shortage of people experiencing the typical VIA syndrome -- low (often horrendous) IDE performance, problematic cold/warm boots, data corruption/dma issues, PCI latency problems (e.g. SB! Live), etc. The list literally goes on and on. I can't speak personally about KT266A, because each and every KT266A board I've tested thus far has been so unstable it didn't last in my case for >24 hours. But I'm not about to consider KT266A 'problem free' -- especially with people -still- reporting issues with SB! Live/Audigy, IRQ assignments, low IDE performance, et al.

So to those who say "but I've used 4 VIA-based boards without a single problem...", I'm calling your bluff. Because you're full of it.

 

[Doomguy]

Via's KT266 was a POS. Buggy, unstable slow. The KT266A was much better. I went from a KT266 to a 760 then to a KT266A.

 

[Rahminator]

I'm currently on my second VIA chipset, namely KT266A and it's rock stable. Previously I've had a VIA Apollo Pro 133A for my P3 and it was just as stable as 266a. I'm very pleased with VIA so far.

 

[Mem]

<< I can't speak personally about KT266A, because each and every KT266A board I've tested thus far has been so unstable it didn't last in my case for >24 hours. >>



Funny how Insane 3D,AMB and I plus other members have had no problems,Pabster we know you hate VIA all you do is flame so I`m not going to get drawn into this so that`s all I`ve to say.

 

[Adul]

<< Mem wrote:

"anybody that says VIA sucks does not know what they are talking about there`re lots of happy owners of this combo just like the other chipsets etc"

Oh, I know what I'm talking about. VIA is suck, plain and simple. They've never been able to release a stable, rock solid chipset. They end up releasing a "new revision" of the same chipset which supposedly fixes everything from the previous (usually only a couple months apart, of course) and it ends up breaking something else. Sure there's a lot of people who will say they haven't experienced "any" problems with their VIA-based mainboard. But I'll guarantee you that either they didn't realize the VIA chipset was at fault when they did have a problem, or they're lying through their teeth. And to this day you will find no shortage of people experiencing the typical VIA syndrome -- low (often horrendous) IDE performance, problematic cold/warm boots, data corruption/dma issues, PCI latency problems (e.g. SB! Live), etc. The list literally goes on and on. I can't speak personally about KT266A, because each and every KT266A board I've tested thus far has been so unstable it didn't last in my case for >24 hours. But I'm not about to consider KT266A 'problem free' -- especially with people -still- reporting issues with SB! Live/Audigy, IRQ assignments, low IDE performance, et al.

So to those who say "but I've used 4 VIA-based boards without a single problem...", I'm calling your bluff. Because you're full of it. >>



In my experience I have had only one majoy issue with the via chipsets and SBlive. But that has been resolved thanks to a bios update. Want I would like to know pabster is what the hel do you do on your system? I have not had any hardware related troubles on my VIA MB since my last upgrade. it runs pretty much 24/7. I have 2 10/100 nics, TB santa cruz, geforce 2 gts card, SCSI card, 1 burner(SCSI), 2 CD-Roms, 1 DVD-ROM and 2 Hard drives, and 2 USb devices hooked up. I do anything from 3d gaming, random stuff photoshop, dreamweavor, playing with bryce, runing seti, learning flash, playing with flask, encoding MP3, running more apps at once then most people, and I haven't had any problems. Granted I have quality parts in my system, but I am still wondering what do you do to make them so instable?