Please Comment on KT266A Stability

[GTaudiophile]

I am trying to hold out for i845-D and Northwood, but I am getting impatient. Also, I am expecting the prices of Northwood to be quite daunting. Why do you ask? Here are some observations I made while browsing newegg yesterday:

Cost of a Pentium 4 2.0Ghz (478-pin): $557
Cost of an AMD AthlonXP 1800+: $238

Cost of an ASUS P4T-E (i850): $172
Cost of an MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU: $135

Total cost of Intel solution: $729
Total cost of AMD solution: $373
Difference: $356

The situation becomes worse when you consider that an i845-D and 2.2Ghz Northwood will cost even more. If you all can convince me that VIA's KT266A solution is just as stable and reliable as Intel's i845/i850 solutions, I might just go AMD.

 

[NFS4]

<< Total cost of Intel solution: $373
Total cost of AMD solution: $729 >>


I think you have the two switched

Besides, the Shuttle AK31 Rev 3.1 is only $85 ($95 shipped). So $85 + $238 = $323. Just get the Athlon XP and be happy Get the Shuttle board and save a lot of $$$ And the KT266A based Shuttle board is stable as heck. I haven't been able to crash it yet. And it has 6 PCI and 4 DIMM slots. It also has a host of overclocking options (memory, CPU, clock multiplier/bus speeds, CPU voltage, DDR voltage, etc.).

 

[Shnak]

you forgot to factor in the prices of memory... 512MB PC2100 (Crucial) will cost you ~70$ while 512MB PC800 (generic) will cost you 168$ ...

Go with the Athlon XP, enjoy it for ~6-12 months and then see what's new on the market...

Shnak

 

[NFS4]

<< you forgot to factor in the prices of memory... 512MB PC2100 (Crucial) will cost you ~70$ while 512MB PC800 (generic) will cost you 168$ ...

Go with the Athlon XP, enjoy it for ~6-12 months and then see what's new on the market...

Shnak >>


Yeah, that's a good point. 512MB is a MUST for Windows XP if you ask me. And besides, I'd rather have 512MB of Crucial PC2100 ($70 SHIPPED), than some no-name generic PC800 stuff. Not to mention it's over two times the cost of DDR.

 

[Mem]

Go AMD it`s way cheaper,I don`t have a KT266A board (yet ) but my Via KT133 is rock stable and I was using Intel before that,btw I`m staying with AMD for my next rig which will be Via KT266A or nForce not decided yet.Also all the reviews on KT266A boards from Epox,MSI etc have had very good stability.

 

[GTaudiophile]

^bump

 

[foofoo]

i agree with nsf4.
my shuttle ak31a has been fast ans stable. no crashes at all.
and it's cheap.
as far as i can tell, this would make my decision easy.
good luck in which you choose