Help me decide - ECS K7S5A/Duron 1.1 or Gigabyte GA6OXT-A/Celeron 1.1

[Quoch]

Hi Everyone, I was going to go for the Celeron but I can't seem to make up my mind ever since my friend told me to look up the ECS K7S5A reviews, man did I miss this one. it's the best value board I have seen.

I could get either for similar prices, but I would like your opinions or experiences with the board, e.g. performance, stability, etc.

(I am building a value system to create a third PC - its needed)

Thanks

 

[kmike75]

Quoch.......go for the K7S5A!

In a few months if you want more speed you can pick up an Athlon XP 2000+ and that K7S5a will be luv'in it!!!!!!

If you go with the Celeron you are stuck with a socket 370 motherboard that won't run ANY higher end Intel Processors...like the Pentnium 4 for instance.

 

[gsethi]

go with the K7S5A setup. as mentioned by kmike75, you can always upgrade to an Athlon later on when they become cheap.
if you want to go with Celeron, then go with the newer Celerons (1.7 Ghz) based on P4 architecture. That way, you can upgrade to the P4 when they become cheap Dont go with the old celerons now.

between your current setup, definately go with the k7s5a with duron.

 

[hopeless879]

Definately the K7S5A, since you can use sdr or ddr memory in it, so if you have any extra lying around you can use that. The duron will also outperform the celeron clock for clock.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

here is a 3rd alternative for you. Since the AK31A is only 5$ more than the K7S5A and has all the overclocking features the ECS does not, I say buy the AK31A/Duron/2100 DDR combo, pencil in the L1s, drop the multiplier so you can raise the FSB to at least 145-150 while still overclocking it at least a 100mhz higher and enjoy your new toy. BTW, 1 of my rigs is a 1ghz Morgan@1.165ghz (155x7.5) and the mem bandwidth score beat everything in Sandra but the RDRAM/P4

 

[lsman]

another vote to ECS K7S5A (with LAN, sound on board, choice of SDRAM or DDR RAM) and may i suggest Duron 1.2 (pricewatch has 1.2 for $47 and 1.1 for $45, pay the extra $2). Get a nice 80mm HSF for less than $10. You then can enjoy the quiet operation of celeron as well as the performance AMD give you. However, don't think that Duron has too much room to OC than Celeron (i could be wrong).

For OC bios, check ocworkbench.com's ECS forum. BTW, get a solid 300W PS to start with the K7S5A.

 

[Athlon4all]

K7S5A. Great board, just make sure you have a high quality Power Supply (Antec's are great). Much better upgrade path than the Celeron board, and will be faster.

 

[newbiepcuser]

If you live near a Fry's, they have sale on the Shuttle Via 266A board with a Duron OEM 1 ghtz for $99.00

 

[Evadman]

Here is another vote for the K7S5A ( or the K7SEM )

Good PWS seems to be recomended, but I have a 1700+ with a k7S5A runnig with a 200 watt Sparkle PWS. YMMV

 

[Rottie]

While I tally votes the ECS K7S5A 5 to none than anything else....Who are you listening to?

 

[optimistic]

Originally posted by: Evadman
Here is another vote for the K7S5A ( or the K7SEM )

Good PWS seems to be recomended, but I have a 1700+ with a k7S5A runnig with a 200 watt Sparkle PWS. YMMV

The K7SEM has great sound! And video equivalent to TNT2 speeds.

But I recommend to go a step further and look up a socket 478 board (Pentium 4) and pair it up with a Celeron 1.7GHz (They fit in socket 478 boards).

PROCESSOR: $87 shipped
+
MOTHERBOARD: $49 shipped
=
1.7GHZ trotter (with potential of 2.26GHz OC) onboard GF2MX200 speed graphics, with GREAT SiS sound & performance, integrated LAN, and all the expansion options every normal computer geek could want: 1 AGP (4x), 3 PCI. & 2 dimm slots for PC2100/2700 plus 533fsb P4 B support. And when properly overclocked can whip the a$$ of an XP1600+ on half of Anand's benchies all for $136.

Game over. YOU WIN! YAY!

 

[TheCorm]

A superb value board it is!

another vote to ECS K7S5A (with LAN

The K7S5A-3 has this, and the cost isn't that much more!

 

[DragonWizard]

I have to go against the masses here. I suggest you do a little more research using anandtech and tom's hardware, etc... Though most of you have had luck with this board there are just as many if not more who have not. Checkout all of the problrms with this board in the knowledgebase at ECS (elitegroups) website. By the way also very poor tech support. I just sent back my fifth and final ECS K7s5a for a refund. I like to stick with ASUS, ABIT or Gigabyte. They are all no-brainer setups with little to no hair-pulling. Good luck with your final choice.

 

[RobsTV]

Originally posted by: optimistic


1.7GHZ trotter (with potential of 2.26GHz OC) onboard GF2MX200 speed graphics, with GREAT SiS sound & performance, integrated LAN, and all the expansion options every normal computer geek could want: 1 AGP (4x), 3 PCI. & 2 dimm slots for PC2100/2700 plus 533fsb P4 B support. And when properly overclocked can whip the a$$ of an XP1600+ on half of Anand's benchies all for $136.

Game over. YOU WIN! YAY!

Man, I hate to see reviews like that.
Take an Intel CPU and overclock it, then compare it against one of the best AMD overclockable CPU's without overclocking the AMD.
Most of the XP1600+'s overclock to higher speeds than the XP1900+ CPU's do, with many hitting XP2100+ speeds.
The "benchies" listed show 9 tests, and out of those 9, the Cel at 2.26GHz beats the stock clocked XP1600+ (1.4GHz) in 3 of them!
In the other 6 tests, the XP1600+ (1.4GHz) beats the Cel at 2.26GHz in all of them, and the XP1600+ even whips the normal P4 2GHz in 5 of them.
The whipping is done by AMD to Intel, as a stock clocked 1.4GHz CPU (XP1600+) whips both P4 at 2GHz and Cel at 2.26GHz in 66% of the benchies.
So then let's compare overclocked to overclocked, and talk about a whipping! OOUCH!

Stick with the AMD solution. Even ECS is better than going backwards.

 

[lsman]

Originally posted by: optimistic

Originally posted by: Evadman
Here is another vote for the K7S5A ( or the K7SEM )

Good PWS seems to be recomended, but I have a 1700+ with a k7S5A runnig with a 200 watt Sparkle PWS. YMMV

The K7SEM has great sound! And video equivalent to TNT2 speeds.

But I recommend to go a step further and look up a socket 478 board (Pentium 4) and pair it up with a Celeron 1.7GHz (They fit in socket 478 boards).

PROCESSOR: $87 shipped
+
MOTHERBOARD: $49 shipped
=
1.7GHZ trotter (with potential of 2.26GHz OC) onboard GF2MX200 speed graphics, with GREAT SiS sound & performance, integrated LAN, and all the expansion options every normal computer geek could want: 1 AGP (4x), 3 PCI. & 2 dimm slots for PC2100/2700 plus 533fsb P4 B support. And when properly overclocked can whip the a$$ of an XP1600+ on half of Anand's benchies all for $136.

Game over. YOU WIN! YAY!

K7SEM is a sis730 chipset, solid but not fast and the video is i guess not close to TNT2... I build some PC m810 with sis730 chipset. with 4ch sound, video, lan on board and AMR 56K modem for $60.
There is a big different with sis730 and sis735. SIS735 is a single chip (both north and south brig) and it support BOTH DDR RAM and SDRAM. (sis730 only SDRAM)

And the motherboard of your choice only support up to 400FSB, no 533fsb.

However, its up to Quoch if you want to pay the extra and go for a higher clocked processor.

 

[Quoch]

Wow, thanks for your opinions/responses everyone,

Looks like I might decide to go with the ECS K7S5A and a Duron above 1GHz because of its upgradibility, performance and price.

I just needed to get a simple value set up (not needed for overclocking) for a third PC because I only have two PC's in the home with four members in the family using it at the same time.

I also never fought the K7S5A could take Athlon XP's and that just gives me another reason why to get it because I own a Athlon XP 1700/512MB/MSI K7N420 system, If I upgrade I could replace and put them in the K7S5A - thats good.

Just one more question, does anyone know if the MSI K7N420 Pro NForce can support the new Thoroughbred CPU's?.

Thank again everyone.

 

[flenn]

LinkyPoo - retail box 1.2 Duron and K7S5A for $105.

Though most of you have had luck with this board there are just as many if not more who have not.

Well, if that was true, statistically I would have had at least 3 failures out of the 6 boards I've bought. Guess I've been lucky to not have any problems at all.

 

[Regalk]

I can't believe how may people are supporting that POS K75SA. ECS is basically crap but it looks like they may have cleaned up their act based on how may people have responded positively. Personally I have now abandoned all products made by ECS.
Take a look at the MSI SiS745 version and Asus A7S333 as alternatives.
I am currently using the A7S333 and a Tbird 1.33 at 1.46 (146 x 10).

A. K75SA
- needs better than average Power supply
- onboard sound is poor
- could have problems setting up
- sometimes a little extra force to get video card installed
- can use eiither SDRam and DDRam.
- reasonable overclocking

B. A7S333
- needs any cheap 300w Power supply
- onboard sound is excellent (CMedia)
- zero prolems setting up
- no CPU mulitplier and CPU vcore adjustment (bios or jumper)
- a little more expensice than the K75SA (marginal)
- oveclocking only by FSB
- supports newer AMD Thoroughbred

 

[osage]

While I also think the ECS K7S5A and a Duron would make a nice rig, another good board would be the even less expensive SHUTTLE AK32L..go over to OC.comand look for the " Tight Budget Box " some very good numbers for a "cheap" setup..IMHO

by the way I have 3 K7S5A mobos and they are great with SD ram or DDR, I've used them with Durons,T-bird, and XP's....

 

[lsman]

i am lucky to have my enlight 300W case with the ECS K7S5A with 1.4 TB, DVDROM, 32XCDRW, 7200RPM 30G WD drive, 2 pano fans (on the process of windows and 2 more fans)