K7VTA3 v5 vs k7vta3 v8?

[JEDI]

Besides v5 having 3 memory slots and v8 only has 2, what are the other differences?

And which is the better version, and why?

 

[Peter]

v8 no longer has the footprints for the additional IDE RAID and FireWire controllers that have been there up to v7.x. Also, the onboard LAN no longer is a PCI chip, but the chipset's own LAN engine is used. Consequently, the board itself is a lot smaller.

In other words, it's a cost reduction thing, removing rarely ordered options, as well as making better use of the chipset. Less PCI chips and more chipset internal feature usage is a good thing - for both cost and performance.

 

[JEDI]

so basically v8 is just smaller and cheaper than v5?

but if they are both the same price, would you opt for v5 since it has 1 more memory slot?

edit: i have three 256meg memory chips and just trying to see if v8 is worth sacrificing 1 mem slot.

 

[Peter]

Well if you want to use your three DIMMs, and are sure that they work together at all, you got your answer already.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: Peter
Well if you want to use your three DIMMs, and are sure that they work together at all, you got your answer already.

yeah

just wanted to see if there was any reason to get v8 over v5 if both were the same price (ie: Fry's combo sale)