Friend building high-perf. AMD system & refuses to wait for nForce... What Mobo options *OTHER* than Via?

CZroe

Lifer
Jun 24, 2001
24,195
857
126
My friend is building a very high-performance AMD Athlon 1.4Ghz system & refuses to wait for the nVidia nForce chipset boards... He *REFUSES* to use anything with a Via chipset, & quite frankly: I can't blame him. But after stumbling on the Iwill Ali board, he ordered it without a second thought (Using MY card too) & I made him cancel it. Why get stuck with a bad board just because he want's to avoid Via? He needs o learn SOMETHING about it first. I looked up an old (April) socket-A chipset comparison here at AT & saw that it has abismal performance & DDR latency issues. I've been praising the virtues of an AMD760 system, but I think that it's too expensive to convince him. Does the AMD761/Via 686b (Southbridge) combo have the same problems we are used to seeing with Via? Like the SB Live! incompatabilities & the necessary installation of the Via 4-in-1 "workarounds?" I *KNOW* Via has yet to work out their eternal flaws from the new KT266 boards, so that's not an option for us. He probably won't get nForce either because of the price/wait :(
 

tazdevl

Golden Member
Mar 1, 2000
1,651
0
0
The KT266A will be released next week. From all the previews that I have read, they have the bugs stomped out. Go to all the major hardware sites and read the previews. When released, the KT266A boards will be the fastest on the market. I doubt they will be much more than KT266 boards because the pin design is the same, so all they have to do is smack it into the board.

FYII have SBLive and have had no problems with my motherboard... nor have I had any problems with the 4in1 drivers. Ali's boards have great specs, unfortunately that's all they have.

I'm waiting for an nforce. If the benches suck I will get a KT266A board.
 

Athlon4all

Diamond Member
Jun 18, 2001
5,416
0
76
Well does he want to overclock? Then AMD 760 is the way to go. I'd get Abit KG7-RAID. For non-ocing, then SiS 735 based ECS K7S5A all the way! But KT266A is gonna ROCK!
 

AGodspeed

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2001
3,353
0
0
If you have to buy now, get the ECS K7S5A.

You can always wait for the KT266A, because it will very likely be significantly faster than the K7S5A. Although it will be twice the price.
 

Transistor

Senior member
Dec 18, 2000
224
0
0
Price seems to be an issue with him. I would go with the EPoX 8K7A+. It uses the AMD 760 north bridge and has good overclock options. It might be exactly what he's looking for.
 

JackBurton

Lifer
Jul 18, 2000
15,993
14
81
I've got an Abit KG7 and this board freakin' rocks! It has the AMD 761 north bridge but it does have the VIA 686B southbridge. All my systems before were Intel and I'm use to pretty damn stable boards, and this board is ROCK SOLID and fast as hell. AWESOME board and I'd recommend it to anyone. I have NO issues with this board and EVERYTHING works perfect. :)