Please prove me wrong! (long)

[Jugernot]

Ok let me start off by letting you know that ever since the K6-2 came out I've had a bias against AMD. My reasoning behind this was simple! Hardware incompatibility and performance sucking is certain programs (games, FPU intensive stuff, etc.). When the Athlon was released it took are of the performance part, but the compatibility problems still remained. I know most of compatibility problems have been fixed, but just a month or two ago I heard something about certain Athlon boards not working with the Geforce II GTS boards. Yet again, the compatibility problem shows its ugle head.

It is for this reason that I haven't kept up much in the Athlon, Thunderbird, and Duron news/events. I need help from you guys that are relatively unbiased toward AMD "OR" INTEL (I know that no one is totally unbiased!).

I'm currently running:

Celeron 366@550
Abit BH6 v1.1
Voodoo3 2000 overclocked to 175MHz (gonna upgrade this to a Geforce II MX Twinview later this month)
Diamond MX300
Netgear FA310TX PCI NIC

I was going to get a PIII 750E for $210 and try for 930MHz, but for $210 I could get a new motherboard and a Duron 600MHz for cheaper.

I have noticed that VIA has released several chipsets in the short time the Athlons have been released. If I buy a Duron 600MHz (and hopefully overclock it to 900 or 950MHz) and a KT133 mobo (you tell me which one) now, will I regret it later because of problems and performance issues?

I know this was a lot to read, but I'm relying on your opinions to help me choose.

Thanks guys!

Joe

 

[hans007]

havent had any problems with my tbird and board. The geforce problems were on some early irongate boards, the geforce is fine on the via ones. Intel boards have problems too. A lot of ASUS p2bs cant take a geforce (AGP 3.3 volt problems) , same with a lot of gigabyte bx boards (the early ones). I know that the abit lx6 cant take even a voodoo3, as well as some of the p2l97 asus boards. Its all based on motherboards specs, you'll be fine with an a7v and duron. If you want a real stable board get a gigabyte ga7zx (my 7zm has run a geforce and voodoo fine, and 117 mhz fsb works, so thats what i base that recommendation on)

 

[Pongpan]

If you want to overclock....

ASUS A7V or Abit KT7 period.

 

[xtreme2k]

i had a

C366 oc 567
Abit BX6/2
Creative TNT2ultra

and i upgraded the C366 to P3/700
doing 868/124 now
(i got 256MB PC100, cannot be bothered to get another 256MB PC133)

i am not too sure if your mobo can take a coppermine(i think it does, but only at 100MHZ fsb, since i did some research into if the BX6/2 can support coppermine, i found some info on the BH6 also)

from what i know the BH6 will do coppermine but it doesnt do over 100Mhz FSB
so dont plan to overclock on that

i think it has gota be a current thingy i duno for sure

honestly the performance between my C366 at 567 and a P3/700E at 868 is noticeable BUT NOT SIGNIFICANT. normal usage to surf the net, play most game (including Q3) the difference arent too big honestly
btw, even the C366 at 567 'peaked' my TNT2ultra at 1024/16bit in Q3... meaning NO ADDITION FPS for that res after upgrading to the 700E

what i find much faster is encoding video
that is at least 2x as fast encoding real video streams with the 700E, as well as rendering in microstation

but for general usage, the 700E doesnt give a significantly faster performance compared to the 550/567

i wont say i regret getting the 700e tho
but DDR chipset for AMD is just down the road
might wana wait abit longer

 

[Jugernot]

Ok, so most compatibility problem have been fixed? How is the Abit K7T for stability? It seems similar featurewise to the A7V, but it has Soft Menu and 6PCI slots.

As for the DDR AMD chipsets, I've already got 384megs of PC100 that will do 150MHz FSB, so I'm not all that anxious to get rid of it.