EPoX 8K3A or 8K3A+

[Aves]

I'm going to be upgrading my PC soon and I'm looking at getting one of these two boards to go with an Athlon XP 1800+.

As I understand it, the only difference between the two boards is that the 8K3A+ has RAID and 6-Channel audio. Is this accurate?

I don't need the RAID feature and already have a sound card so if that's the only difference I'll just save a few bucks and just get the 8K3A.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[gaidin123]

Yup, you want to just get the 8k3a then as long as you don't plan on using the onboard RAID controller for RAID or just extra IDE ports. Keep your soundcard as it is likely better than CMedia sound (not saying Cmedia sound is bad, just most standard/popular soundcards sound better).

Gaidin

 

[Pederv]

I usually get the "loaded" board because in a few months the board will be in someone elses system. I picked up the 8K3A+ even though most of my hard drives run off of my 29160N SCSI controller. In 6 months the board may be in a different system with the 4 spare hard drives and a CD burner and DVD-ROM. I may give the SB Live I have laying around to the girl freinds mom, which will leave me with no sound card for the system.

My point, try and picture where your motherboard will be when you don't need it anymore.

 

[Zim Hosein]

aves2k, you are correct about the features of the + ands non+ version of the EPoX mainboard; I chose the + version because it was a very small premium and if I need another ATA controller, I would have to buy an extra IDE card, plan for the future, hope this helps

 

[Insane3D]

Also, check Mwave.com as they have some great prices on the Epox boards. $75 for the 8K3A and $98 for the 8K3A+.

 

[Heinrich]

I believe that the + version has the bootup LED that the regular version does not. I've not found it to be useful because I've not had any issues or bootup problems at all. But I bet if I do have a problem at some point in time that it will be useful and I'm glad that it's there.

 

[Aves]

Thanks for the input guys!

I think the 8K3A will satisfy my needs and only paying ~$75 will leave a little extra money for a faster CPU or more memory.