Which would you rather have for about 100 dollars ??

[Soulkeeper]

Abit kv7 (kt600) and 256mb pc3500 Geil 2.5-3-3-6

or

abit nf7s v2.0


which would you rather have asuming both come out to about 100 dollars

 

[Soulkeeper]

anyone ?

is it really worth the extra 30 to 40% markup on nforce2 ??
assuming i don't need any of the integrated stuff and don't want dual channel mem

 

[Boonesmi]

people like to rip on the via kt600

but ive found it to be a very nice chipset....

its fast (just a hair slower then the nf2)
it uses the vt8237 southbridge which gives it killer via vinyl envy audio (even better then soundstorm)
integrated Sata (so you dont have to worry about pci bus saturation like you would on a nf2 with multiple sata drives)
seems to be more forgiving with lower quality powersupplies and lower quality ram


i just used one a few weeks ago in a build for a friend, an asus a7v600 running an athlonXP2500+ at xp3200+ speed (ie. just running the fsb at 200mhz instead of 166mhz) it runs generic pc3200 and generic powersupply and has no problems at all

 

[mechBgon]

I don't think that model has the Envy24, Boonesmi. Abit's specs don't seem to show it. Is there a comparably-priced model that has it? The only motherboard coming up at Newegg in a search for "Envy" is (ironically enough) an nForce3 150 board.

 

[Soulkeeper]

hmm nice catch
looks like that 6 channel stuff just might be cheesy

 

[Boonesmi]

any board with the vt8237 southbridge and the vt1616 codec (it needs the vt1616 codec to take full advantage of the via vinyl envy stuff built into the southbridge)

i know the asus kt600 board doesn't have the vt1616 codec
i know the soltek kt600 and aopen kt600 boards both do have the vt1616 codec
and i really dont know about any other boards

a nice review on the anandtech main page a few months back of the soltek board
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1852&p=2 (scroll down half way and you can read about the audio on the board)


**copy/paste** from the anandtech review linked above

In other words, the VT1616 codec provides better sound than an MCP-T powered nForce2 motherboard unless you make use of a SPDIF-out port and have speakers with a receiver.

last time i checked it seems like they were around $70 at newegg

 

[Soulkeeper]

that's a nice board, but it has evil bios settings
can't change the mem timings all the way
but nice price and i like the via sound

 

[Boonesmi]

the asus board also has great onboard audio with the ADI AD1980 SoundMAX 6-channel CODEC (but its still not quite as good as boards that use via's own vt1616 codec)

 

[Pistolero]

Are you an overclocker? I'm don't think the via chipset has the pci/agp lock like the nf2 does.

 

[Boonesmi]

Originally posted by: Pistolero
Are you an overclocker? I'm don't think the via chipset has the pci/agp lock like the nf2 does.

nope it doesnt have agp/pci lock, but it does have dividers. so you can still overclock the fsb and keep everything in spec (ie. overclocking an xp2500+ to xp3200+ speeds by running a 200mhz fsb... this setup keeps everything in spec) and it also has full multiplier adjustment (depending on the board and the bios the manufacture uses)

 

[dhaddox]

If you plan to run linux, you should stay clear of the nforce2 chipset. because it tends to have issues.

 

[Falloutboy]

if you going to overclock stay with a NF2 defenatly, PCI dividers suck and are too limiting. if you want to save some money go with a shuttle AN35 nice simple NF2 board with some good overclocking features. can be had for 60 or so from newegg. leaving you 40 for a decent stick of 256

 

[Soulkeeper]

Originally posted by: dhaddox
If you plan to run linux, you should stay clear of the nforce2 chipset. because it tends to have issues.

i ran linux on an nf2 board for some time and didn't have any issues with it
i think the main thing is the fact that people don't like their closed source drivers
also i heard the onboard stuff don't have the best drivers, but that don't really matter to me much


thanks everyone