INTEL 815E or VIA694X

[gustavo]

Would like to listen opinions regarding the best chipset choice for an intel platform,
the Intel 815E or the VIA 694X (VIA Apollo 133).}

Pros and Cons of both of them.

Thanks Gustavo.-

 

[bigbootydaddy]

intel will 9 out of 10 be nice and stable, i have a VP6 which uses the apollo 133 pro, works fine, smp.

i can overclock at 1 mhz intevals, but those are features of the mobo, not the chipset.

booty

 

[Noriaki]

i815E would be my choice.
Very nice integrated NIC, integrated Video if you need it in a pinch, and good all round performance and stability.

It does have that 512MB max memory limit though, but by the time I need more than 512MB of RAM I'll have moved onto a new board.


The 694X doesn't perform as well, and has the 686B south bridge which I hate. Though it seems to work fine with the newest 4in1s I still don't trust it.

It does offer more than 512MB of RAM though if you need it.

 

[gustavo]

I was told something like that the Intel 815 runs the memory at a maximum of 133 MHz and that supports just 4 "sides" of memory, if you use more than 4 sides it runs at a maximum of 100 MHz.

So it raises me the question of how do you know how many sides your memory stick has ?

Gustavo.-

 

[ToBeMe]

IMHO they are BOTH good choices! Yes, the 815 has the 4 side ram limit problem......but then the 694 IS a Via board! LOL!

 

[Athlon4all]

I'd go 815E

 

[gustavo]

Tobeme: how do I know how many sides one dimm stick has?
Gustavo.-

 

[GregMal]

815E definitely!!! If you're set on a VIA chipset I wouldn't get
an Intel CPU, go for an AMD..............
Greg

 

[JonnyDuke]

DIMM= two sides, tho I've never heard it refered to in that way.

Unless...I forget about DDR, but still not heard that term before.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

dimm can be single-side or double-side.
depends on what kind of chips it uses.
for 256MB dimm using 128Mbit chip, it's double-side, each side has 8 chips, total 16 chips.
for 256MB dimm using 256Mbit chip, it's single-side, only one side has 8 chips.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Ive had VIA and now I have 815. VIA was just godawful for me.

 

[oldfart]

You'd be hard pressed to find a better mobo than one based on the 815E.

 

[LXi]

694X's performance is actually not bad, it can easily manage better memory bandwidth than the 815E, but just a bit slower in 3D games. Overall the performance of the two chipsets are very close, I personally would not use performance as the deciding factor. VIA 694X boards tend to be cheaper, but not as widely available anymore as the 815E boards blossomed. The better chipset right now is definitely the i815E/EP B-step, since you get Tualatin support right away; the 694T is suppose to come out soon but there is no reason to wait, unless you need more than 512MB of RAM.