Help: Most Stable / Overclockable DDR-266 motherboard for 1.33 Ghz Athlon..?

[VBboy]

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I would really appreciate your responses on this topic:
What is the most stable and overclockable DDR/266 motherboard for an AMD Athlon 1.33 Ghz?

I am buying the CPU+Mobo in a week, but was unable to find the needed information regarding which motherboard overclocks better than others. It could be the KT266 or the AMD 761 chipsets, I don't care, as long as it's stable - I read a lot of reviews that MSI K7T Pro 266 is unstable because of that 127 resistor.

I considered:
MSI K7T Master (AMD 761)
MSI K7T Pro 266 (KT266)
FIC AD11 (Don't remember)
+ some others

But no article compared their overclocking abilities...

Please post any sites you know of that actually say how well a particular motherboard can overclock. If you have a motherboard and overclocked it, please let me know which one it is and how easy it was to overclock.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Noriaki]

I can't comment from personal experience (I don't have my RAM yet).
But I did the same search last week, and I came up with the MSi K7 Master AMD761/Via686B board.

It's supposedly billed as a Workstation class board, whereas the K7T266Pro is thier "Mainstream" board.

I really haven't heard anything bad about the K7 Master.
I have one sitting beside me, but I don't have my DDR RAM yet.

You have to watch out for the Via 686B south bridge, but I'm pretty sure all the issues with it are resolved now.

It has Multiplier and FSB adjustments in the BIOS, it has a special jumper that just resets the Multiper and FSB speeds without clearing the rest of your BIOS

It's got AGP4x Pro, and 5 PCI slots. You can even get a version with onbaord Adaptec SCSI (though mine doesn't)

 

[Insane3D]

You also might want to consider the Epox EP-8K7A/EP-8K7A+, they look pretty attractive to the overlclocker. These boards are also a AMD 761/VIA 686B combo, and the plus one comes with onboard RAID (Highpoint 390).

 

[fishingeek]

I'll second the Epox idea. I was set on the MSI K7Master but after reading all the problems that people are having with them at the amdzone and amdmb forums I decided to go with the Epox. I got it up and running this weekend and everything went great. It has great tweaking options, 6 PCI slots and a good layout. I have yet to see any bad posts (on forums) about it. I would spend some time reading forums before you make your choice. I am happy I did.

 

[Dentari]

If you check over at AMDzone, there has apparently been a batch of bad K7 Masters, with various problems. If you get a good one, they're supposedly pretty good, but bad ones are pretty bad. Seems to have something to do with possible evaluation copies of the board getting distributed as retail. Some have reported K7 Master boards as running extremely hot, and some have had bad pci slots.

Of course I read about all this after I got my K7 Master. So far it seems ok, but all I've done is install windows 98se. Going to start updating the drivers tonight, and possibly flash the Bios.

 

[LXi]

I personally will take KT266 over AMD760. I think the K7T266 Pro is a great board, with proper configuration it will perform in the right track, plus it doesnt use 686B so you're safe from the potential problems. The K7 Master is a good board too.

 

[VBboy]

Thanks, everyone, you've been great.

 

[kcbass]

I wouldn't say that all the issues for the 686b are cleared up...mine sure aren't.