Ready for DDR but want to use Sdram for now...? Suggestions for new MB...?

[Bartman39]

What really good OC`ing MB`s out there now support both DDR & Sdram...? I`m almost ready to make the change but whats sad is I have all this good Sdram that will need a good home (about 2gigs worth total...) I currently use an A7V133 and will need a "raid" board to replace the current cat daddy... 🙂 (most likely the wife will end up with it...) So give your suggestions and reasons why...

Also should I just go with a board that only supports DDR...? If so why...? (look I`m the guy that just had Win 3.1 figured out and could not bear the thought of Win95 back in the good ole days when I paid over $400 for 2-8meg simms DOH...! 😀 )

thanks... 🙂

 

[Audiofight]

Hate to burst your bubble, but the only chipset out right now that does support both SDR/DDR ram is the ALi chipset. The bad thing is, Asus already dropped their board based on this chipset and I have had a horrible time with it myself. The chipset just isn't very fun and the experience made me want to avoid any Asus product for a bit, but I can't hold a crappy chipset against them. It sounds good on paper, but does poorly in the box.

I would say, hit the For Sale/Trade section and sell off that SDR ram you have and go to Crucial's site and buy some 256 sticks of PC2100.

Just my experience and .02

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

audiofight

never heard of the SIs 735 motherboard have u

well ECS makes it and its les than $70 shipped at newegg.com

 

[mikef208]

ECS K7S5A, another vote here

 

[AgentofEvil]

Not if you want to overclock though...🙁

 

[Bartman39]

OC`ing is a must... 😉

But what makes the SIS 735 chipset so good...?

 

[mechBgon]

It is pretty fast and very cheap. Very good memory performance and it takes PC133 as well as DDR, supports all Socket-A CPUs and has an onboard NIC (at least mine does). I did some tests using both DDR and PC133 CAS2, both at the fastest BIOS settings, and found a 1.5%-9% performance advantage with DDR... so you could start with your PC133 and upgrade to DDR later.

Not all is well with the ECS K7S5A that was the first 735 board out, however: you must update the BIOS to address a problem with corrupted writes to floppy drives when using Win2k; there are only two DIMM slots; and some people would like a RAID option and (of course) overclocking options. At this point you should consider a KT266A board, maybe the Shuttle or Epox since they seem to be hitting the market. Both of those are going to offer you the overclocking and even better memory performance.

http://direct.mwave.com/mwave/doSearch.hmx?bop=and&scriteria=kt266a $89, not bad.