Need your recommendation

[Serpent]

Hi

I am not much of a motherboard expert but when i needed to buy one, i went with my previous positive experience with Asus and bought a A7v266-e.

Well, I have RMAed 1 board and am on my second one. Both of them suffer from temperature issues. This one hit 73C yesterday.

But anyway, here is the question:

Should I go with the Abit KX7-333, the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU or the epox 8k3a+ rev1.2 or rev2.0


I have an unlocked xp 1800+ and i am running win xp. I will be looking for stability (12.5 x 145 is good enough). So please let me know your thoughts on each board.

I can't go higher than 136 fsb on my asus ( plus all the temperature issues) without getting a bsod.

Thanks.

 

[CoDerEd]

i never try those three board nor kt333, my last amd mobo is abit kr7a kkt266a,
but in my global opinion, abit and epox has beter overclocking option than msi.
on the other side msi usually has more feature such as usb 2.0 and better sound card.
i just see the feature option both of the board at newegg and epox seems to have exactly same feature
compare to msi for the same price too, around $108. abit kx7-333 is $100 - plain no feature.
i trust abit will be a better choice if you want to OC than epox but if you need something that OC well and has some
built-in feature too take the epox.

 

[dunkster]

What CoDerEd said.

MSI boards are feature-rich and stable, but they seem to stress stability above over-clocking. That's not really a bad thing.

I have KR7A/RAID board, and I'm pleased. When I bought it, the raid + overclocking features choice seemed obvious.

If price is important, I'd look closely at Epox and Shuttle as the apparent value-leaders offering excellent performance.

Hope this helps!

 

[Serpent]

Thanks for the replies.

I have a question. A friend of mine, who has worked with the Kr7 and owns a couple of them too, he mentioned something about that board having issues with multiple memory sticks (large memory sticks, 256MB or greater).

Is this true?

He said that these issues have been rectified in the Kx7-333. Is there any substance to his comments about the kr7? And does the kr7 run stable with win xp?

Thanks.

 

[dunkster]

Current Abit boards with 4 memory slots are designed with separate VMem regulators. Mem slots 1 & 2 are voltage-regulated by a different regulator than that for mem slots 3 & 4. Putting 2 sticks in 1 & 2 or 3 & 4 can (not necessarily) result in poor mem stability or even no-boot.

For reference, see the HardOCP review of the Abit AT7-Max (last page, disussion between Kyle and abit reps).

Many users report better 2-stick stability using mem slots 1 & 3.

Hope this helps!

 

[CrazySaint]

I was pretty set on purchasing the EPoX 8K3A+ until I realized that it only has USB 1.1, not USB 2.0; however, if you buy it right now, they are giving away free USB 2.0 PCI cards, so I dunno...

You said that 12.5 x 145 OC was "good enough", I assume you meant 11.5 (the standard clock multiplier setting for XP 1800+)? 12.5 x 145 = 1812MHz, which is just a bit faster than a XP 2200+ (which are currently on pre-order at newegg.com for US $240).

 

[Serpent]

Hi

I had my friend unlock the cpu. But this board won't go further than 136 before BSODing.

I have a preference for big name manufacturers to I am pretty much decided on the Abit. But not sure whether the Kr7 or the Kx7-333.

 

[CrazySaint]

Most people seem to prefer boards from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and EPoX over other brands, and they're certainly all "big name manufacturers".

 

[Flyingcool]

Originally posted by: CrazySaint
Most people seem to prefer boards from Asus, MSI, Gigabyte and EPoX over other brands, and they're certainly all "big name manufacturers".

Don't forget ABit!