Help me choose...Asus A7A266 or A7V133?

[Seeko]

I'll be keeping my SDRAM so these two are my choices. Is the Ali chipset stable/reliable? Would you recommend that over the Via chipset and why? Which one is more overclockable? I'd like to hit at least 145Mhz. Any input would be appreciated.

 

[dowxp]

i thought a7a266 was only ddr.

 

[tpetre4322]

how do you like the tonicom ram .i sent mine back cause it wouldnt go above 137 fsb unless set to 333 a7v133

 

[dowxp]

hmm. never mind. there is support for sdr. =)

 

[Seeko]

It's running fine at 140 CAS2. I'd like to crank it up some more on my next motherboard.

 

[AndyHui]

The ASUS A7A266 is a fairly stable chipset, although the performance of the board with SDR RAM is fairly poor, and in many cases the A7V133 will probably outperform the A7A266.

Currently there are a few strange quirks with the A7A266 as well, such as onboard audio not working properly (if you use it), problems with running 2 DDR DIMMs at 266MHz, some board revisions do not have multiplier adjustment....although you can mod the board if you wanted it.

 

[chainbolt]

It has been proven again and again that DDR is faster, because it gives you more bandwidth, denpending on the application you run that translates into prefornce gains, between 0 and 10%, for example with 3D games.

The A7A266 is based on the ALI chipset, that is a stable thing, but by far not the best performing. If you can wait maybe 3 or 4 weeks, you will get the A7V266. This board also comes with sockets for both types of memeory, but is noticable faster than the A7A266. Please see my A7V266 thread in the mobo forum, with all information, review etc about this mobo. Here is the latest about the upcoming A7V266!

 

[Seeko]

Thanks for the heads-up and link, chainbolt. I can wait for the A7V266 coz I'll be waiting for the next round of CPU price cuts.