Originally posted by: MartinCracauer
I am getting fed up with my NForce 250 gb board, too.
I ordered a Via-based board. I didn't like Via in the past but maybe the kt800 has it's act together.
Valid point, but both VIA and nVIDA have issues (though small ones) Past VIA issues: VIA had IRQ handling issues, AGP issues, as well as a few others (ACPI) but most of those issues seemed to depend on the mainboard implementation of the paticular chipset, and the bios created for it and how the bios handles the board. Some of the KT400 VIA boards has 8X AGP issues running properly and had to be bumped back down to 4X, and the workaround was manual, and detailed but do-able to get 8x . KT266A back in the day had memory latency issues and needed the George Breese patch to smoothen things out many times, especially with the older OS's. I know about the SB live! and Audigy issues with VIA boards, but again that depended mainly on the board maker and the bios/s operation control set to an extent. KT333 was a very good chipset, KT400 was not so good overall but a few board makers did it right (MSI-Soyo-Epox-Gigabyte). KT400A was only slighlty better then the KT400. KT600 was too late to the party after NF2 was dominating the scene for some time, but yet, there were still many happy KT400 owners. Granted they didn't have AGP/PCI lock but unless you are an overclocker on the high end it really didn't matter that much. Better to have a stock stable fast machine than a constantly broken nVIDA NF2 machine. Bios locks outs. Bios freezing. mainboard comonents not working right with even the slightesty bump in clocks (DFI Infinity initially). Epox boards were being RMA'ed at an unheard of rate too once upon a time(NF2's ) while the KT600 counterparts were happily humming along.
Move to S754/939 with VIA and they are actually very good. They don't have SLI (yet) but still very good. SLI adopters are a HUGE minority, and will continue to be imo (even though it does show promise it's just not feasable for average 'joe gamer').
SIS? They are just fine, they suffer from a few USB speed problems but nothing major, and the biggest issue on them is that they cater mostly to cheaper OEM units, but the
chipset itself is actually very quick, and all it would need is the will for companies to add-in overclocking capabilities and active cooling for it on the chipset. That's it. If the SIS K8 boards could do over 230 FSB (say 270) they would really shine imo. They have the stock speed, and reliability, just not the uber overclocking potential.
But there is nothing wrong with going VIA right now at all IMO- if you don't need a super high FSB and you wan't reliability. Imo the actual board you pick, and the components that you match it up with matter above all else (besides) who puts it together)
A good builder covers all of that. Good part choice -
careful selection of memory, and finally, really knowing how to dial it all in if you overclock with P95, SuperPI, 3Dmark, testing ram with memtest86. rechecking connections, making sure all standoffs match from board to case as not to have grounding issues etc...etc..).
Facebook
Twitter