Of the KT266a's (MSI, and Epox) what's better

[5489]

i need to buy a mobo, which one is the better buy, if i get MSI, i'll get the one with raid. but Wich board performs better.

I know this is a stupid question, call me stupid but, you can have one hard drive on the raid port rite? 2 isnt necesary rite?

 

[Insane3D]

They both will perform very close to one another, it mainly comes down to features. The Epox is a bit faster and probably overclocks a bit better, but nothing that you would notice in everyday applications. The MSI is more expensive because it has features like USB 2.0 and RAID, and the Epox is just a "no frills" motherboard for the overclocker. Either one will be good..just pick the one that suits your needs best.

 

[splice]

Accually MSI has a "no frills" version of their KT266A board. It's selling at newegg.com right now for $110, $6 less then the Epox board. 🙂

 

[LintMan]

<< i need to buy a mobo, which one is the better buy, if i get MSI, i'll get the one with raid. but Wich board performs better.

I know this is a stupid question, call me stupid but, you can have one hard drive on the raid port rite? 2 isnt necesary rite? >>



Sorry, it sounds like the MSI RAID controller doesn't do regular IDE, only RAID. Check out my thread here: MSI RAID question

From the reviews I've read, both Epox and MSI are quite solid and stable, but Epox is better if you want to overclock.

 

[Jiggz]

Another vote for Epox. If you want just additional IDE get either a Ultra-100 or FastTrak-100 from Promise. The former is cheaper and can be modified to be a FastTrak-100 with two simple steps.

 

[ChipNOW]

Epox... plain and simple

 

[Athlon4all]

It seems like that there have been some DOA 8KHA+'s out there, and I'd wait for those bad boards to get out of the channel, then get 8KHA+. If u don't want to wait, get Shuttle AK31 Rev3. K7T266 Pro2 is a great board, but for the ocer 8KHA+ and AK31r3 are better.

 

[RagingGuardian]

There's a BIOS out there that enabled full RAID support on the MSI K7 Turbo and other boards that used the Promise Lite controller. I assume that we'll see a version for the Pro2.

 

[Chumster]

Neither! 😉 The Abit KR7-RAID will be out at the end of Oct/early November. (hopefully!).

Seriously though - I've heard many good things about the Epox. It's stable and fast if it doesn't show up DOA. From what I've read on a number of message boards, Epox knows about, and is fixing the problems. So it might be a good idea to wait.

The MSI also looks like a good board - don't really know much about it though...

Chum

 

[Xerin]

The Shuttle is much cheaper than either of these boards and actually runs slightly faster with the same stability and overclockability. If you don't need USB 2.0 or Raid, get the Shuttle.

 

[PeteyPete]

I was gunna buy the shuttle but i found out that you can't fit the Alpha PAL8045 heatsink on it, so i'll just wait till i can get my hands on an epox

 

[Markiepew]

Do i really need USB 2.0? I was going to get the RAID version, but im probably not going to use it. Is it really needed? If not then I might just get the non-RAID version...unless i really need usb 2.0. Thanks!

 

[Dug]

Actually there is a guy on the motherboard forum that has a picture of the 8045 on a shuttle board. So it does fit.

I would personally go for the Epox though, just because I liked their ability to get out a new bios update with better speed each time.

 

[The Sauce]

It was a toss up for me...i would have bought whichever came out first, and it just so happened the MSI was available first. The MSI does better in the benchmarks (albeit by a couple of percent only) and is probably more stable. The Epox has had some DOA's based on the forum messages from their first batch. However the Epox apparently has better overclocking options (although the MSI's overclocking options are nothing to sneeze at either). The MSI is $6 cheaper at Newegg and the shipping is $4 cheaper so you save $10 by getting the MSI.

Obviously the MSI was my choice so I preferred it over the Epox....mostly because of availability. But I really haven't heard anyone make a good argument for the Epox over the MSI. So there you are.