Opinions Please - K7VTA3 or K7S5A Pro (ECS Shootout)

[lizardboy]

Going to be building a system with an XP 2400+, 256 x 2 Crucial 2700, Ti4200, etc. Wondering which motherboard I should use - I have both on hand from prior deals at Fry's.

No plans to overclock, just want to surf the web, play a few games, etc.

Thanks.

 

[fireontheway]

for me,its kinda hard to pick between the 2 since they are both old boards.why not just get a current NF2 board then you'll have more room for future upgrade? btw both boards mentioned above run at a max of 266mhz fsb (stock, unless u use the 3rd party OC bios) so you should be fine with 2100 ddr if you decide to pick 1 of the 2 boards mentioned 🙂

 

[pspada]

K7VTA3, for sure. I've used both, and it's the better board. In particular, the K7S5A Pro often loses it's bios settings, something I've not seen on the K7VTA3.

 

[lizardboy]

Thanks - this is for a friend on a budget. He's getting a lot of my old stuff to build his new system and I had both mobo's sitting in my closet.

I just ordered myself a MSI KT600, tried an NF2 earlier this year and had lots of problems. Looking forward to putting in the MSI and seeing what it can do.

 

[fireontheway]

doh, didnt notice u mentioned u got em already 😱, i assume u also have the 2700 ddr already 😀

 

[Peter]

Which revision K7VTA3? This has undergone several major modifications, stepping through the many iterations of VIA chipsets. You might be offered something quite old. If it's a fairly recent one, it'll be the better choice, chipset integrated USB 2.0, higher FSB support and all.

 

[lizardboy]

Originally posted by: Peter
Which revision K7VTA3? This has undergone several major modifications, stepping through the many iterations of VIA chipsets. You might be offered something quite old. If it's a fairly recent one, it'll be the better choice, chipset integrated USB 2.0, higher FSB support and all.

8.0

 

[Peter]

http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/pd_spec.asp?product_id=352

That's the latest one, with KT333CF/8235 chipset, and the smaller size board than the older revisions. Use that one then. K7S5A, today, makes sense only if you want to reuse SDR RAM.