Need a quick review on ECS K7S5A SiS® 735 mobo

[The Sauce]

Putting together a budget system for a friend and this baby is on sale for $ 52. Is it worth it over say $85 for a VIA KT333 mobo?

 

[jfall]

I have also been thinking about buying this board.. I have read at least 50 reviews on it and have heard pretty much all good things about the board.. most people who have reviewed them scored them well. From what I gathered, it's not really a board that should be used for overclocking because there really isn't a lot of options, and some people report some instabilities with certian types of ram. Also, a lot of people seem to have problems with these boards if they are useing a cheap power supply. Other then that, most say that the board works very well and is rock solid.. also the price can't be beaten. So, if you have a good power supply, and aren't a complete newb to building PC's and aren't looking to seriously overclock that computer, this board should be perfect for your budget computer project.

 

[aswedc]

Three of my friends (and me) have SiS motherboards, 3 K7S5A's and 1 Aopen AK75. No problems. I even have a ECS/SiS video card in my ECS/SiS motherboard - gotta love cheap stuff! 🙂

 

[Goi]

For a basic budget system, the K7S5A is hard to beat. However, if you intend to do major overclocking, this wouldn't be the board to get since it lacks voltage/multiplier adjustment, and only has limited FSB speeds. The latest O/C bios adds more FSB speeds though. Feature wise it is pretty complete, performance lies beneath the KT266A boards, but above the KT266 boards. If you're willing to spend a bit more for better performance, consider the VIA KT333 based ECS K7VTA rev3.x

I have both boards in 2 different systems and they're both stable 24/7. If you decide on the K7S5A, make sure you get the newer versions, since AFAIK the original versions had compatibility issues with Athlon XP processors.

 

[Brian48]

I submitted a user review of this motherboard at the below link (under the nic Jarhead):

http://www.techimo.com/reviews/p72.html

 

[Goi]

Hmmn, forgot about the PSU issue. I didn't have any problems with mine though, and its just an Enlight 300W unit that came along with my Enlight 7237. I guess its not so much as the PSU power rating but the quality, and the current ratings at the different voltage rails. Enlight might not be a top of the line PSU manufacturer, but at least its branded 🙂

 

[The Sauce]

Hmm...i just ran through the reviews at THG and it seems the Soltec KT266A won top picks, should be a lot faster, and Newegg has it on sale for $71.99. Should be more stable and future-proof. Think I'll probably go with this one.

 

[Goi]

Well, if its worth $20 more to you, then by all means get it. You'll get faster performance.

 

[XMan]

Get the Abit NV7-133R. 😉

 

[thorin]

I've done alot of reading on this board and will be using in for 3 or 4 sys as soon as I can get my hands on some Thoroughbreds. All the reviews and information I can find and everyone's input here is that this is a great board.

Thorin

 

[majewski9]

I have an ECS K7S5A board and it has been very good to me! I bought it for 60$ awhile back and it was a perfect transition board for me. It is kinda outdated but ECS keeps on releasing BIOS updates for it. It would be nice for ECS to release an SIS 746 board with the 963 south bridge and raid. Well the K7S5A is still a good buy and the only KT333 boards I think that any better have the VT8235 soutbridge which basically justs adds USB 2.0. I am waiting to see what the K7S5A 2 is all about! The K7S6A was sort of dissappointing.....

 

[hypeMarked]

This board is not too bad, BUT, I have problem with the onboard sound so much that I spent another 20 bucks for another sound card. Just a warning!!!

 

[bocamojo]

I bought the first revision of this board just about a year ago, and have found it to be extremely stable/reliable. True, it is not for overclocking, but is a very good performer and rock steady. Haven't had any problems with it whatsoever. For 50+, still a very good buy.

 

[Belegost]

I'm using this board, and I really don't recommend it. So far the biggest problems I've had are conflicts with my PCI video card and any sort of sound, on-board or add-on. The PSU issue is major though, I've built a couple other machines with this, and found that the 300W Enhance over at newegg (OOS right now) seems to work best. I tried using a 300W enermax with it, and no go at all. OCWorkbench ECS forum is a good place to go to find support for it, plus all the latest BIOS releases, both official and 3rd party.