MOBO for AMD XP

[zardari]

I am thinking of switching from my current Dell P3 800 to AMD XP. Was looking at several barebone kits and not sure which motherboard to go for. I have ATI rage pro, Creative Sound Blaster Live, 3com ethernet and some modem on my current machine. So, if I get a mobo which does not have any of those cards, I can probably use them. I looked at several boards and it seemed like ECSK7S5A is one of the cheapest option. There is also ECS K7VTA3 V3.X which seems like the other ECS board but has 3 RAM slots. Other company boards like Soyo, Asus are a bit expensive compared to this. I can get ECS with XP1600 and casing for abt 155 + shipping. Any ideas on which board would be good for XP...with emphasis on price and performance. Is it worth spending 50+ bucks extra for an Asus or some other board.

 

[Kazuo]

I know I'm gonna get some flak for this, but go with the K7S5A. It's obvious that you're not INCREDIBLY obsessed with power (with your ATi Rage Pro and all), and the K7S5A gives decent performance at an excellent price. And it supports your old RAM if it's PC133. And it has onboard ethernet. As far as 1600+ goes, it'll run fine on the K7S5A. It's AthlonXP 1600+ approved by AMD. I would consider getting an ATi Radeon 9000 while you're at it. It's a good base card, runs about $65-$70 w/o DVI (about $5 more for that) and gives far better performance than your Rage. I've also seen GeForce4 MX420s for around $50. Even that'd be a lot better- my one gripe is lack of hardware DX8.1 support on the GF4MX line. It's worth buying a better video card for the extra $50ish

 

[mechBgon]

I had a K7S5A and it was pretty good. It will take at least an AthlonXP 2200+ and probably even higher. The onboard sound is nothing special, but the onboard network adapter works fine. It actually performs fairly well even with PC133. It wasn't designed for overclockers, but with the money it saves, you can buy a faster CPU, right?

If you aren't buying right away, wait a couple weeks and see how nForce2 turns out in the reviews. It probably will cost somewhat more, but it will support future AthlonXP's that use the 333MHz bus speed, and it will incorporate top-notch sound and GeForce4MX-level video (or you can get versions without onboard video), plus dual Ethernet jacks, USB 2.0 and FireWire, and (I think) Serial ATA. Some of those things could end up saving you money, now or later, so if you're considering spending extra money, you may want to hold off and see what nForce2 is like. Preview of it is here.

 

[MithShrike]

OK, first question, what will you be using this for? OK, now if it's performance you want go with the K7VTA3 because it is a VIA KT266A chip based motherboard while the K7S5A is SiS 735 which you can only use two of the DIMM slots because two are for SDR and the other two are for DDR. Now, if it's price you want but want the same memory performance as a KT266A go with the ECS K7VMM this is KM266 chip and has built-in LAN and sound and video, however it still has an AGP 4X slot. Well, there you go... that's for ECS chips all of it there. If you want the breakdown for others just ask.

 

[zardari]

This motherboard - Gigabyte GA-7VAX 266FSB 3DDR - is abt 30 bucks more than ECS. Seems like it has a lot of upgrade options. Is it worth going for this over ECS?

 

[mechBgon]

The GA-7VAX uses the KT400 chipset that has official support for all AMD SocketA CPUs, ranging from the old 200MHz-bus ones to the current 266MHz-bus ones and the upcoming 333MHz-bus ones. ECS doesn't say whether their KT333-based K7VTA3 v. 3.x supports the next-generation 333MHz-based CPUs or not, although it could be that it does (some KT333-based boards do offer such support). So if you want forward compatibility, the KT400-based Gigabyte GA-7VAX *subliminal message* or an nForce2-based board *subliminal message* would be good choices, and yes they cost more.

 

[Kazuo]

Errr... actually, that K7VTA3 (v3.1) is KT333. It is really a high performance platform. If you don't want to use SDRAM, definitely go for the K7VTA3. It's like $15 more and has RAID and (I think) onboard ethernet too. Pretty sweet board. There's also the Biostar M7VIP which I haven't been able to find many reviews for, which is $63 and is another KT333 solution but with the southbridge that's usually paired with the KT400 so it has USB 2.0 onboard.
There are a lot (errr... too many) options available to you Figure out what your needs are more precisely and finding a mobo then won't be so difficult.