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pls help!! - can the ALi MAGik 1 chipset (rev 3) compete with kt266a???

1

1vish1

Member
well title asks it all really..... im planning to buy a pc (i dont have the time to build one myself unfortunately 🙁 )... and have seen a brilliant deal from mesh computers (i live in the uk so those of u from elsewere may not have heard of them).... heres the spec:

spec

the only component that im not too sure about is the motherboard.... it is the asus a7a266 which uses the ali magik 1 chipset.... not sure which revision it is but i have enquired and they will get bak to me.... ive read somewhere that revision 3 of the chipset is not bad and is nearly as good as the kt266a.. not sure where i read it (in one of tese forums i think)... so to sum up.. my question is that is this one flaw big enough to deter me from buying this machine???

thanx

\/!$/-/
 
im not really looking for performance... stability is the main issue with me..... is ali magik stable???... oh and another thing.... i have seen this machine take part in a group test in a magazine.... it came out top in all but one benchmark! - that is wat made me ask the question otherwise i would never have even thought about gettin this chipset.

thanx for ur input btw
 
actually the IWill XP333-R (MAGiK chipset) is just as fast as most kt266a boards. It's also VERY stable. The latest BIOS releases have brought the memory scores to within 2-5% of the kt266a. Also the Iwill destroys any kt266a board in IDE performance, especially RAID....because of the VIA PCI bug. I figure that with a couple more BIOS releases the IWill XP333-R will be ahead of the kt266a.
 
Although I am not too sure where the c0 stepping of the ALi Magik 1 chipset stands, the B0 stepping IS competitive with the VIA KT266 chipset.

The initial shipments of the ASUS A7A266-E, as far as I know are based on the ALi Magik 1 b0 stepping, and not the newer, even higher performing c0 stepping.

The original ASUS A7A266 was based on the A0 chipset, which did not quite keep up with other competing chipsets when used with memory configurations that were not PC2100.

The A7A266-E is a stable motherboard and performs very well indeed. People who claim that others should stay away from the ALi Magik 1 chipset do not know what they are talking about. No PCI problems, no AGP problems (as long as you install the AGP driver), no SBLive issues.
 


<< Although I am not too sure where the c0 stepping of the ALi Magik 1 chipset stands, the B0 stepping IS competitive with the VIA KT266 chipset.

The initial shipments of the ASUS A7A266-E, as far as I know are based on the ALi Magik 1 b0 stepping, and not the newer, even higher performing c0 stepping.

The original ASUS A7A266 was based on the A0 chipset, which did not quite keep up with other competing chipsets when used with memory configurations that were not PC2100.

The A7A266-E is a stable motherboard and performs very well indeed. People who claim that others should stay away from the ALi Magik 1 chipset do not know what they are talking about. No PCI problems, no AGP problems (as long as you install the AGP driver), no SBLive issues. >>



people that know how to build computers don't expierence these problems dubbed as "VIA" problems in the first place. ALi Magik1 is an inferior chipset and we only stocked/installed it for a short time because it could take DDR or SDRAM
 
The initial revision of the ALi Magik1 chipset was inferior. This is no longer the case.

I personally have not experienced the "VIA problems" either. Are you saying that I don't know how to build computers?
 


<< No PCI problems, no AGP problems (as long as you install the AGP driver), no SBLive issues. >>



Exact same thing can be stated about the KT266A, and the KT266A is faster.
 


<< people that know how to build computers don't expierence these problems dubbed as "VIA" problems in the first place. ALi Magik1 is an inferior chipset and we only stocked/installed it for a short time because it could take DDR or SDRAM >>



The reason I switched from the kt266a to the ALi Magik was because I run RAID. The VIA kt266a just can't do it because of the PCI latency bug. Even with the patch performance still lags behind all the other chipsets. I actually felt the same way about ALi before I tried it but I'm really impressed with it now.
 


<< The reason I switched from the kt266a to the ALi Magik was because I run RAID. The VIA kt266a just can't do it because of the PCI latency bug. Even with the patch performance still lags behind all the other chipsets. I actually felt the same way about ALi before I tried it but I'm really impressed with it now. >>



Read my explanation on the "bug" issue here
 
ok... thanx for all ur input ppl.... really appreciate it! ok.... i still havent had a reply from the vendors (mesh computers) telling me which revision of the ali magik 1 chipset will be on the board that i will get... however, i have seen another group test and this machine came first in all but one of the benchmarks... so that makes it two group tests where this machine has came first in all but one benchmark.... and most of the other machines in the test had kt266a based mobos!... so should i assume that the board in the mesh will have a later revision of the ali magik 1 chipset, i.e. not the first version????

thanx

\/!$/-/

p.s. and oh yah.... about the asus a7a266-e <=== i couldnt find this board on the asus site (i looked in the european version)?!?!?!
 
LOL! 😀

True VIA zealots come in 🙂

I'd take MAGik 1 over KT266A in a heartbeat. So what if you lose a few numbers in synthetic benchmarks? It's worth it for the stability.
 
ASUS A7A266-E link

The A7A266-E does not have the initial revision of the ALi Magik1 chipset. It either has the second or the third stepping, which perform much better. If the stock is new, the board will have the 3rd stepping which has the highest performance.
 
ok... thx for the link! but one problem... its all good if the a7a266-e has later revisions but on the spec of the machine it has got just the a7a266 - no "e"..... do u know if this board has only the first revision of the chipset - or did they change to the later revisions when they came out? basically wat im tryin to ask is that is it only the a7a266-e that has the later revisions of the magik 1 chipset?

thanx again!

\/!$/-/
 
The original A7A266 (which has already been discontinued, by the way), featured only the initial A0 stepping of the ALi Magik 1 chipset.

In addition, for Athlon XP support, you need rev 1.10 or higher for this board.

While the A7A266 is a decent board that doesn't have major problems, I think you would be happier with an A7A266-E, which performs significantly better.
 


<< LOL! 😀 True VIA zealots come in 🙂 I'd take MAGik 1 over KT266A in a heartbeat. So what if you lose a few numbers in synthetic benchmarks? It's worth it for the stability. >>



Now that the Anti-VIA zealot has arrived, I have to ask why? The VIA boards have equal or greater stability then ALi boards. Systems can run 24x7 at Seti @ Home, Prime, 3DMark, without crashing on the VIA KT266A, and that is not possible with all the ALi chipsets.

So, care to argue, or just make baseless claims?
 


<< Systems can run 24x7 at Seti @ Home, Prime, 3DMark, without crashing on the VIA KT266A, and that is not possible with all the ALi chipsets.

So, care to argue, or just make baseless claims? >>



I thought this thread was about the ALi Magik rev. C...not "all the ALi chipsets." if what you claim is true, then there's something seriously wrong with mine and many, many others' XP333 boards, cause I can run those benchmarks flawlessly and stable, and in some cases, just as fast or a little faster than a 266A board.

Accelenation
VR-Zone
OCTools

The benchmarks aren't all that bad. And, as for stability, as shown...some people have managed to get the board into Windows and stable at very high FSB's that the majority of 266A boards wouldn't even post at (take VR-Zone, for example). Personally, I've never had a crash, hiccup, or otherwise and I'm much more happy with this well rounded solution than I was with my previous Via solutions.

I'm not anti Via, don't get me wrong. The 266A is fast as hell. It just annoys me when people make unsubstantiated claims, generalizing, and following blind faith.

As to the initial question, yes, the ALi Magik rev. C *can* compete with the KT266A, speed and stability wise.
 
ok... thanx for all ur replies ppl!... i tried to find out if the chipset used was a later revision of the magik one, but even after about 10 phone calls to them, they still havent been able to tell me - on the spec sheet it says asus a7a266 is used so i assume it must be the first revision of the chipset. ill probably go for one from multivision - this uses the MSI k7t266pro2 which has the kt266a chipset... i ahev read about the probs with the pci bus on this chipset and there are so many different opinions on it im confused! do the patches sort out the problems? - i dont plan to use RAID or SCSI.... so do u think there will b a big decrease in performance???

thanx again

\/!$/-/
 
If we take the A7A266, you must see that ASUS promise a 25% overclocking with it. In the case of the A7V266-E, normally you can go to 10% without increasing voltages. But you'll miss the RAID, a 35% decrease in disk performance. I think a single 40Gb IBM Desktar ATA 100 7200Rpm could be fast enough, and you'll not need the extra 35% of RAID.



ASUS A7V133
Athlon 1200@1333
2x IBM Desktar 15Gb , ATA 100, 7200RPM, on RAID 0 Promise controller.
Sandra 2000 bench of single drive using Win98SE: 21000 points, 2 in RAID 0: more than 35500 points.
 
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