iWill KK266 or Asus A7V133?

[cbuchach]

Well, I was all set to pick up the Asus A7V133 when I started seeing some great reviews for the iWill KK266 board and now am somewhat undecided, though still leaning Asus. So, I would appreciate some thoughts.

For me, a good quality stable board is of primary concern. Both seem to be pretty stable from Anand's and other reviews I have seen. I also don't want to have deal with too many little incompatibility issues or quirks with the motherboard.

I am planning on putting together a RAID 0 array. Here I have some questions. The iWill board uses an AMI controller while the A7V133 uses the Promise. Is one faster, more stable, or have less compatibility issues than the other? I know the iwill will support more RAID modes, but I will not use these.

I have heard some things about better voltage support (some 3 tier system or something) with the iWill board, so that it will be better able to accomadate future Athlons. Is there much truth to this?

In case you are wondering when making any suggestions, price and overclocking ability is not much of an issue as both seem close enough in those regards (and also I am in no need of an ISA slot or onboard sound). I am going to use Crucial CAS 2 PC 133 so I am assuming about 140-143 FSB overclock at CAS 2, which both the Asus and iWill seem to be able to hit with no problems.

So I guess what it comes down to is, is iWill a good stable board, is the AMI RAID controller as fast or faster than the Promise, and wil the iWill board show better future CPU support.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Dulanic]

They are both good boards really. As for your question about AMI Promise, I really don't know. Promise is excellent but most people have not had much experience with AMI IDE RAID so it is hard to tell. The only thing I don't like is the 100-132 133+ jumper one the IWill.

As for the 2-phase on the A7V133 I just finished an article on that.

http://www.tweakmax.com/html/2phase-palomino/2pp-1.cfm

 

[Biggs]

Has anyone actually e-mailed Asus themselves concerning this issue?
Btw, nice analysis there Dulanic but I'm curious to what other people's opinions are regarding this now *closed* issue.

 

[cbuchach]

Interesting article Dulanic. That seems to clear a few things up and makes a bit more confident about the Asus.

Still, however, does anyone out there have any info about the AMI RAID controller on the Iwill board in comparison to the Promise controller on the A7V133?

 

[tpetre4322]

what cpu you gonna be useing,i have never messed with ami raid, as they are just becoming available, but i have messed with promise alot,and even thought the a7v133, only comes with light raid, raid o with only 64k stripe to pick from,it is very easy to swap into the bios ft100 full bios and pull out the r100 lite bios. check this site, http://www.stormpages/crazyape/downloads.html. if you do get the a7v133, and are confused about the full raid thing, email me at onesykodude@aol.com, and i will send you a modded bios, even with a neat looking athlon logo. just specify 1003.bin, or avu102a1.awd, i went back to the latter, it is more stable for me at 152fsb.there is also a killer duron logo, if you want that i also have one that says tbird.

 

[cbuchach]

So, you are saying that the A7V133 ONLY will do 64 kb strip sizes? In reviews I have seen, 64 kb is not usually an optimal size. 16 kb is usually recommended and is optimal for normal computer use. So the only way to get 16 kb strips is to use a modded BIOS?

 

[djchemistry]

Hey tpetre4322 could you send me a modded bios too? In fact I bet a lot of guys would like a modded bios. Why don't you start a thread?

 

[cbuchach]

tpetre,

I checked out that site and it looks pretty good. So those bioses basically have taken the fasttrack 100 full bios and exchanged it for the stripped fastrack BIOS that Asus uses? Does the full fastrack bios then function in the same way as the one Asus provide? What I mean is, is it accessed in the same way and function similar (except of course that it offers more RAID modes and ability to specify strip size)?

Even though I didn't intend to use RIAD functionality besides RAID 0, it will be nice to have other options available.

 

[IntelConvert]

cbuchach... If you're not an OC'er, the A7V133 is reported to be one of the most stable KT133A boards and the absolute fastest (using the default OPTIMAL BIOS setting). If you are an OC'er, I would think IWill's KK266 is the more tweakable board.