What's the word on an ASUS A7A266 mobo?

[GratefullySaved]

Hey all,

I may work a trade for this mobo, as I need to run an XP chip and my current board can't handle it. Is this a reliable board, a fast board, what chipset?, anything to look out for? Does it OC well? Soft BIOS by any chance?

Anything you can tell me would be greatly appreciated...

Sincerely,

GS

 

[MrBumpy]

Make sure you get the newer version of this board that has revision C of the ALi chipset. It's a lot faster than the original.

 

[yodayoda]

it has an ALi chipset. here is my rankings of chipset manufactorers for AMD from best to worst:

1) nVidia: gotta love nForce2
2) Via: KT400a just around the corner
3) SiS: 735 is the best bargain chipset around
4) AMD: the 760 is pretty stable, the 762 is cool
5) ATI: late in the game, didn't really try
6) ALi: try one and you will understand

thank goodness all the mobo makers have dropped ALi for their chipsets--they just suck ass! bad AGP, had memory performance, horrible driver support.... stay away.

 

[MrBumpy]

Seeing that your chipset ranking is merely your opinion, I would like to argue a few things in favor of the ALi MAGiK 1 chipset (revision C), based on my experience with the Iwill XP-333. First of all, I have had none of the PCI bus issues that VIA boards are notorious for, meaning that I can record audio on my Audigy without crackling and other anomalies. Second, the only case of bad AGP performance I know of can be traced to the fact that nVidias WDM drivers disable AGP on ALi chipsets, the reason unknown (probably has something to do with AGP problems on the old Aladdin V chipset, but these problems are NOT shared by the MAGiK 1 chipset). There are instructions for re-enabling AGP on ALi's website. Bad memory performance, you say? My Iwill XP-333 (ALi MAGiK 1, rev. C) beats my friend's ECS K7S5A (SiS 735 chipset) quite soundly in memory benchmarks using the same CPU and RAM (CL 2.5, Ultra timing):

ALi: 1956/1787 MB/s
SiS: 1676/1608 MB/s

Finally, I don't understand what you mean by "horrible driver support". All you need is the AGP driver, and everything else works as it should. I had no trouble finding this driver on the download page.

All of the things I've mentioned, my system's perfect stability, and my experiences with other chipsets prompt me to devise my own chipset ranking (from best to worst):

1) nVidia: although there were some compatibility issues with the original nForce chipset, the nForce 2 looks hard to beat
2) SiS: The ECS K7S5A is the best-selling AMD motherboard for a reason. More compatibility than VIA at the cost of some performance.
3) VIA: Reverse-engineered AGP/PCI does lend to some compatibility issues and reduced PCI bandwidth (VIA refuses to get a proper license from Intel), but has an excellent memory controller.
4) ALI: Great stability and compatibility with the C-version of the MAGiK 1 chipset, and the performance isn't bad either. Suffers none of the PCI bus problems associated with VIA making it great for music creation and video editing. The ALi southbridge is arguably the best of any chipset, save nVidia.
5) AMD: AMD never wanted to get involved in the chipset market, but their chipsets are decent (even though board manufacturers often ditch the AMD southbridge in favor of one that has more features).

I purposely didn't rank ATI, since I don't know enough about their chipset, and I don't have any experience with it.

 

[BruinEd03]

Originally posted by: MrBumpy
Make sure you get the newer version of this board that has revision C of the ALi chipset. It's a lot faster than the original.

how can you tell what revision the chipset is?

-Ed

 

[MrBumpy]

If I'm not mistaken, the version with the updated chipset is the Asus A7A266-E. The version without the "E" is probably older. I personally am very happy with the C-version of the ALi chipset, but the Asus A7A266 (no "E") is based on the A revision. The A revision was the first DDR chipset to market from any manufacturer, and it didn't have the greatest performance.

 

[AndyHui]

MrBumpy is completely correct in all of his answers.

 

[BruinEd03]

Originally posted by: MrBumpy
If I'm not mistaken, the version with the updated chipset is the Asus A7A266-E. The version without the "E" is probably older. I personally am very happy with the C-version of the ALi chipset, but the Asus A7A266 (no "E") is based on the A revision. The A revision was the first DDR chipset to market from any manufacturer, and it didn't have the greatest performance.

hm...yeah...ok. I might be getting a new mb cuz I have the original a7a266 (no 'E') any suggestions?

-Ed

 

[MrBumpy]

hm...yeah...ok. I might be getting a new mb cuz I have the original a7a266 (no 'E') any suggestions?

The answer really depends on what you are looking for in a motherboard. Most people nowadays seem to be going for an nForce 2 motherboard, since that chipset seems pretty hard to beat. Then there's the VIA KT333 or KT400 boards, and depending on what you want to do, those might be fine. New SiS boards are out, but I really need to read up on them before I start recommending things. Boards with any other chipsets are becoming a bit long in the tooth at this point, but upgrading from what you currently have might not show a whole lot of difference. The main benefit that the newer boards offer is USB 2.0, AGP 8X and support for newer processors and RAM.

 

[BruinEd03]

Originally posted by: MrBumpy

hm...yeah...ok. I might be getting a new mb cuz I have the original a7a266 (no 'E') any suggestions?

The answer really depends on what you are looking for in a motherboard. Most people nowadays seem to be going for an nForce 2 motherboard, since that chipset seems pretty hard to beat. Then there's the VIA KT333 or KT400 boards, and depending on what you want to do, those might be fine. New SiS boards are out, but I really need to read up on them before I start recommending things. Boards with any other chipsets are becoming a bit long in the tooth at this point, but upgrading from what you currently have might not show a whole lot of difference. The main benefit that the newer boards offer is USB 2.0, AGP 8X and support for newer processors and RAM.

well for the ram i'm gonna get, i'll probably buy pc2700 and the a7a266 only supports pc2100 so it won't take full advantage of the speed. What's so good about the nForce2....some A7N8X deluxe seems to be all the rage nowadys...

-Ed

 

[magomago]

3) VIA: Reverse-engineered AGP/PCI does lend to some compatibility issues and reduced PCI bandwidth (VIA refuses to get a proper license from Intel), but has an excellent memory controller.

But this is a P4 issue, not a Athlon issue which is what he is looking into