What is a good upgradeable AMD board?

[Jonestown]

Since I don't know much about different processor sockets, is AMD going to stay with the current socket A or change to something in the relatively near future?

With that in mind, how long do people foresee the current kt133 mobo's staying around, and possibly, how fast of a proc could these current kt133's handle? Or would it just be better to go with a newer DDR board?

Thanks,

Jonestown

 

[Dark4ng3l]

asus A7V133 (KT133a)

 

[goul]

What about the EPoX 8K7A?

 

[ScoobE]

id go with the asus a7a266 only because of the fact that it supports ddr ram as apposed to the a7v supporting sdram. both boards are rock solid though since i own both.

 

[MichaelD]

The Socket A form factor is here to stay. AMD will stick w/it for quite sometime. DDR memory is the same price as PC133 (SDR) memory, and offers a performance boost. DDR is the way to go. Second the Asus A7A266.

 

[Jonestown]

Since the socket A is going to stay for awhile, would it be safe to say that many of these mobos that were mentioned could handle the higher clocked procs with BIOS updates for the clock multiplier, right?

Jonestown

 

[datallah]

I have an ASUS A7V133 and i love it. My only concern would be that with the new Athlon 4's coming in august, there will be features that the board doesn't fully support (specifically on-die thermal diode, etc.) So, if you can, you may want to wait for the next generation.

 

[prodigall]

What about the A7M?
The AMD chipset has great performance.

 

[formulav8]

I would have to say either the Epox 8K7A, Fic AD11 or MSI K7 Master.

 

[BillMartin12]

I've found the Abit KT7A to fit every need of mine, I'm running a 1100mhz T-Bird on it.

Abit makes excellent boards, I'm very happy with my choosing them.

 

[MichaelD]

Abit rocks. I have a KT7R. But it's SDR, not DDR. NE1 building a new MAIN rig should go w/DDR. Negligible price difference, notable performance gain, more future-oriented.

 

[datallah]

What you all are neglecting to mention is that to a certain extent any board you buy right now is going to be obselete when VIA comes out with the new version of the chipset to fully support the new stuff in the Palamino.

BUT.... If you really want a stable board right now, get an A7V133.

 

[zoom8112]

get the kk266-r from iwill

will support the next gen athlon mp (palomino)

 

[datallah]

Again... a follow up...

Most current boards *will* support the athlon 4s, but they wont support some of the new advantages (i.e. on-die temperature reading). That includes the kk266.

The only current board which supports the Palamino on-die temp. reading is the IWill kd266 to my best knowledge... but i wouldn't buy it because it has the ALi SDR chipset which quite frankly i wouldn't touch with my 3-foot pole.

 

[Boobers]

IWill KK266-R

Posibly the best socket A MB ever made. If someone disagrees, they've obviously never owned one. I also have an Asus A7V and it is a POS.

 

[madthumbs]

I'm extremely happy with my Epox 8k7a.

 

[Jonestown]

Thanks for replies.

I'm just floating these questions around right now just to gather needed info, but I don't plan on getting anything for at least two months.

I think I've seen some of the palomino MP's (I'm guessing this is the Athlon 4 or something very close) at newegg, etc. When is the general release date of Athlon 4 and motherboards that fully support it going to be? Since I have to wait anyway, I might as well get the newest.

Thanks again,

Jonestown

 

[Athlon4all]

Just a few points:

1. All of the Asus boards mentioned here are great except for the A7A266, it's performance is very poor. If you want SDR/DDR slots then I'd wait for A7V266 (KT266), which has SDR and DDR slots, and AMD has put A7V266 on it's recommended test platform.
2. If you go DDR, then I'd get 760 board, and my personal recommendation is MSI's K7 Master. A7M266 is great, but expensive. i have heard great things about Epox 8k7a and FIC's board.
3. If you're gonna wait a few months, then nForce boards may be out, and so will Athlon 4's. nForce is definately the way to go.
4. i dunno much about Athlon 4 support in current boards, but I do know that the board requires a chip to recignoize the Athlon 4 processor, and obviously the board needs to support the Thermal diode also.