This Iwill XP333-R board is pretty nice...188mhz FSB@CL2

[Insane3D]

Just picked one of these to play with. I planned to use a Tbird 1.4ghz out of a 8K7A+ board I had. I picked up the board with a stick of Kingmax Tiny BGA PC2700 with the 5ns chips. Set the board up with the following components:

Iwill XP333-R
Tbird 1.4ghz
256mb PC2700
CL GF DDR
Linksys NIC
Onboard Audio
30GB IBM 75GXP (Still going strong after 2 years)

I lowered the multiplier to 8 and installed XP. Works very well and it ran over 24 hours with Prime95, 3DMark2K1 SE, and listening to streaming audio with WMP. I can get it up to 190mhz @ CL2, but a tad bit of instability creeps in. I also was able to get up to 200mhz FSB with CL2.5 and lower memory settings, but the memory performance was less than @ 188mhz. All in all a great board..especially for all the features it has for only $109.

Memory Benchmark and WCPUID Screenshot

This ALI chipset isn't half bad.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< This ALI chipset isn't half bad. >>

Acer Labs needs to thank the gods that a great manufacturer like iWill supported them. An iWill XP333@166fsb is about equal to a KR7A-133@133fsb, so the choice is clear in my opinion...

Still, iWill did great work with that board.

 

[jcmkk]

Where is the fact that you're basing your Iwill/Abit comparison on? If you look at the Anandtech KT266A roundup, then you will see that the Iwill isn't too far behind the Abit.

 

[Daovonnaex]

I got it from Anand's.

 

[j@cko]

Ya, ALi's solution isn't that great performance wise. Even after it's overclocked like crazy still doesn't help.

 

[Insane3D]

"Ya, ALi's solution isn't that great performance wise. Even after it's overclocked like crazy still doesn't help. "

It doesn't help? How do you figure. This board has better memory performance than my KT26A boards @ 160mhz. Sure it has a big advantage is FSB speeds and a KT266A at the same speeds would outperform it, but the KT266A isn't capable of running anywhere near these speeds since it doesn't have the correct dividers. Have you even used the chipset?

There are other things that matter to a boards performance. Ali's AGP performance is excellent, and their IDE performance is better than Via's. These memory scores are with a Tbird and not an XP, so there is no hardware prefetch helping the bandwith out. No offense, but you seem to be talking without looking into the facts first..

 

[Furor]

Insane, you can get rid of the memory performance drops at 1/5 and 1/6 divider using wpcrset or wpcredit and changing some values, which will give you much better performace than kt266a at 166+ FSB..Check out http://www.amdmb.com forums for the exact values to change..I think they are like 61 = 6C and 78 = 80..but i'm not 100% sure.

 

[j@cko]

<< No offense, but you seem to be talking without looking into the facts first..
>>



Actually, from many reviews from online review sites, it is actually quite clear that Ali MAGiK 1's performance is below KT266A's.
Anandtech
Firingsquad
Ocworkbench.com
and many more.... go read it yourself.

 

[ElFenix]

so uh... wheres the seti benchmark?

 

[Insane3D]

"Insane, you can get rid of the memory performance drops at 1/5 and 1/6 divider using wpcrset or wpcredit and changing some values, which will give you much better performace than kt266a at 166+ FSB..Check out http://www.amdmb.com forums for the exact values to change..I think they are like 61 = 6C and 78 = 80..but i'm not 100% sure. "

Thanks, I just went over there and did some checking. Turns out the latest bios changes all those settings to the ones that people were using. Thanks anyway though..

 

[Insane3D]

"so uh... wheres the seti benchmark?"

Don't worry, I just started running Seti on it today. I want to get a few WU's done before I post an average.

 

[AGodspeed]

Very impressive Insane, you just got me very interested in this board.

 

[Furor]

I think there is one that isn't in the latest bios, which improves memory scores over 150+ FSB, but not sure which one it is..I had a XP333 2.0 the day it came out a few months ago, but I took it back because I wanted the vcore increase and there was no solution to the performance drop with the dividers. My new XP333 should be here on Tuesday.

 

[Anzu]

Nice to see someone else who's had a good experience with the XP333. Haven't gotten mine to go past 162 FSB, but I think it's my memory holding me back. It's PC2100, not 2700.

I'd heard that this was a fairly popular motherboard around here, don't know if that's true. Not too many Iwill users over at the Overclockers.com forums; I'm something of an oddity there I guess.

I think I'll quit rambling now.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< Nice to see someone else who's had a good experience with the XP333. Haven't gotten mine to go past 162 FSB, but I think it's my memory holding me back. It's PC2100, not 2700.

I'd heard that this was a fairly popular motherboard around here, don't know if that's true. Not too many Iwill users over at the Overclockers.com forums; I'm something of an oddity there I guess.

I think I'll quit rambling now. >>

It's fairly popular due to its high price to performance ratio. I believe that the most popular mainboards are the EPoX 8KHA+ and the Asus P4B266-C, two mainboards I dislike...

 

[Anzu]

<< It's fairly popular due to its high price to performance ratio. >>



Exactly the reason I bought it.



<< I believe that the most popular mainboards are the EPoX 8KHA+ and the Asus P4B266-C, two mainboards I dislike... >>

What do you have against those two? Just want to know what I should avoid if I decide to switch motherboards at some point.

 

[Daovonnaex]

<< I believe that the most popular mainboards are the EPoX 8KHA+ and the Asus P4B266-C, two mainboards I dislike... >>

What do you have against those two? Just want to know what I should avoid if I decide to switch motherboards at some point. [/i] >>

We're going off-topic now. IM me.

 

[Insane3D]

"Very impressive Insane, you just got me very interested in this board."

No problem. Next up, Northwood and Sis645..

 

[BlvdKing]

I agree, the Iwill XP333 is a great board. I say that it is my favorite board ever. It's stable, fast and full of features. My current setup is 175*8 for 1400 MHz on my unlocked TBird. Here is my thread about this board.

I hope that the Tbred (.13 micron XP) will work in this board.

 

[BeauJangles]

The only qualm I have against Iwill is really really really crappy tech support. It took me forever and a day to get an RMA for my kk266. It took so long that I went out and bought a 8k7a in the meantime.

Nice o/c, btw. It seems Iwill still has great performance! I only wish they would get a little better tech support. :|

 

[Furor]

How much of a score difference at the same FSB is CL2 to CL2.5? At 195mhz FSB CL2.5 and normal i'm getting around 2470 and 2310, which seems a little low..what bios are you using? Jan 18th here.

 

[Furor]

After a little more work..i'm now running 200x8 = 1600..stable so far..200 @ CL2! but my memory scores are a little low..2550/2400 with a few things open..could prob get 2600/2450 if I closed stuff and really tried.

 

[Insane3D]

Nice job! What memory? Are you still using Normal @ CL2?

 

[Furor]

Yeah..Normal with CL2..are you using fast? your scores are higher than mine at 188/ CL2..and i'm using OCZ PC3000

Edit: If you can, look on your motherboard - to the right of the ram slots, and look at the ICS chip..what are the numbers on the bottom? I realized that the board reviewed at vr-zone has one different than mine..there's is lke 93705, and mine is different..I wonder what that means.

 

[Insane3D]

Nope..I'm using Normal, CL2 and the Kingmax PC2700. Are you using the 1/6 divider...I'm still using 1/5 @ 188..maybe that's the difference..

BTW..I was not able to use Ultra 1 or Ultra 2 @ even 133mhz....