Stability of a Duron System?

[shiner]

Ok guys(and gals I suppose) this is your chance to convince me. I've decided to bit the bullet and upgrade my PC. It's currently a PII333 on an Abit LX6 motherboard. I think I'm am going to go the Duron route for an upgrade but I need to be sold on the stability and compatibilty of such a system. My only experience with an AMD chip was WAY back with a DX4-100 many years ago. Needless to say it was not a good experience and I've been strictly Intel since. After reading the reviews and seeing how the Duron is killing both the Celeron and the PIII I've just about decided to take a leap of faith and build myself a system with either a Duron 700 or 750(depending on how large the price difference it.) So here I am, asking for you hard core AMD supporters to knock my socks off with HONEST reviews of the Duron and it's stability and compatibilty. Intel guys feel free to chime in and give AMD their knocks if you choose since I want to see both sides of the story.

If I do decide to go ahead and build the system which motherboard should I use? I keep seeing that the MSI board seems to be the king but have never had any experience with their boards. I've used ASUS, ABIT, and Gigabyte in the past and have had good luck with them but if the MSI is really that much better I want to hear it and hear why it is.

Sorry for the long post but this is important.

Thanks as always!!!

 

[paulip88]

Since I just built a Duron system and a dual processor PII, and a PII system, here's my list of gripes about each one:

Negative things:
AMD Duron/TBird problems:
Getting all my cards to work was a pain. Yeah, its doable, but the the Asus A7V is a bit picky when it comes to which cards go where. I also had to spend a lot oftime downloading drivers and such for the VIA chipset that the mobo uses.

PII systems on Intel 440GX/FX
No real problems. Just windows installation being retarded as usual.

Overall, looking at the problems, building for an intel board would be easier. I hesitate to say the Intel platform would be easier though, since the issues were mainly with the chipset, which would be VIAs fault. Since VIA makes chipsets for both AMD and Intel platforms, the issues apply to both. However, with the Intel platform, you can easily avoid VIA's chipsets.

Furthermore, I don't think VIA makes bad products. I'm happy with my board. Its just more of a challenge to set up.


Positive things:
AMD Duron/TBird:
Dirt cheap, and VERY overclockable.

Intel Platforms:
May save money on mobo. Also get to say "Intel Inside". Hell yeah!

 

[Mem]

My last board was a Abit LM6(LX chipset)& CEL 333mhz,anyway I decided to upgrade to a MSI K7T PRO board with Thunderbird 900mhz & Geforce2 MX,all I did was do a little research on AMD approved parts like PSU,heatsink/fan & use good Memory(Crucial in my case) & I have had no problems(apart from a CPU go faulty)anyway I did do a clean install(Win98 os1) & loaded the Via 4-1 drivers first ,after that it was the rest of my drivers & since then I`ve been playing loads of games with no problems.

Btw I`m still waiting for my first BSOD,or lockup or crash ,even my old Intel board was never this stable.

If you intend to overclock go with the MSI K7T PRO2 board,MSI right now are the best when it comes to stability on SocketA boards.MSI also have regular Bios updates,use high quality parts & very low RMA rate,infact they are as good as ASUS.

 

[w9design]

Just built a Duron 600 @ 1000 MHz on an MSI K7T Pro2. All is well and I'm rock stable.

 

[paulip88]

hrm, looking back I didn't exactly answer your question. Well, here goes:

My Duron 600@858 has been running Win2k rock solid since November 10th. Only time I experience instability is when I play 3d games in Win2k, which is likely because of flaky drivers for Win2k.

Like I said before, the Asus board is good, but a pain in the arse. I'd go with the MSI K7T Pro2A.