Who else is salivating at KT266? SDR and DDR on the same board :D My dreams come true.

[Noriaki]

The Asus A7V266 KT266 based board will have 3 168pin SDR DIMMs and 2 184pin DDR DIMMs, it's SocketA of course and has AGP Pro 4x. Only 5PCI but with built in Promise Ultra100 RAID the 5 should be plenty for most of us (I'm use all 5 of mine now but one is a Promise Ultra100, I'm sure there are people that will use 5 even without the promise..but you know). And of course it supports 100 and 133 FSBs

So I can get myself a TBird 800 @ 1000/133 (I know a place that sells TBird 800@1000 guaranteed for about $180US) and use my 256MB PC133 Micron. And then when DDR266 gets cheaper I can swap that out

It's my dream come true (well for a motherboard...I have other dreams, but those don't belong in GH )

 

[MadRat]

Can you run both banks of memory? It would be sweet to look at my memory and see bank 0/DDR and bank 1/SDRAM.

 

[Leo V]

It's a VIA chipset. There also exists a non-VIA chipset, from AMD. You'd have to shoot me before I chose VIA over anything decent.

 

[Noriaki]

Via over anything decent? How is AMD any better than Via? In what way was the AMD750 better than the KX133? And you run a Via chipset yourself yes?

The only major problem I've seen with Via Athlon chipsets in the last 6 months is the 686B foul up, but the KT266 doesn't use the 686B. Besides, the AMD760 doesn't support SDRAM.

 

[Leo V]

Noriaki, what I meant was VIA vs. AMD chipsets of the same class. The AMD Irongate was obsolete next to the KX133. Nonetheless, my uncle suffered a plethora of problems for getting a new KX133 motherboard at the time! I mean beyond anything "Irongators" encountered! Yes, I'm using a KT133A chipset, which after a year of revisions (in the form of KX/KT133) was finally made usable. But I'm certainly no VIA worshipper after all my experiences with them!

 

[MadRat]

*cough* ...750 chipset obsolete? *cough*

 

[Sugadaddy]

<< cough* ...750 chipset obsolete? *cough* >>


Actually , I think Leo's right. 750 only supported pc100, agp2x, and didn't have very good performance at first. Not to mention all the problems people had with these boards. AMD only made that chipset so that the Atlon would have a platform at launch until Via came out with their own chipset.

 

[Sugadaddy]

That Asus board looks sweet. Might be my next upgrade with a new cpu...(not too hard on the wallet since I can keep my ram) I just hope performance is on par with the 760, which it should be. As for stability, Via proved me they could make decent chipsets, so I'm not worried with them anymore.

When is it coming out?

 

[Kulgan]

I just hope the via KT266 is just as fast as the AMD 760 (or faster). ALI's Athlon DDR solutions are inferior compared to the amd760.

 

[Smbu]

&quot;So I can get myself a TBird 800 @ 1000/133 (I know a place that sells TBird 800@1000 guaranteed for about $180US)&quot;

You can get regular Tbird 1ghz/100 cpu's for around the same price as that 800@1ghz, maybe even a little less. Most should be able to run at 1000/133, probably even a little higher. The lowest price I see on pricewatch is $173+$9 shipping.

 

[ChipNOW]

Yep... watch out for Iwill in the future fellas - their stuff is getting better and better.

 

[Leo V]

&quot;Most should be able to run at 1000/133&quot;

If I understand things correctly, the CPU doesn't care at all what the FSB is. A &quot;regular&quot; 1GHz Tbird should (theoretically) run just as well at 1000/100 as it would at 1000/166 or even 1000/500 Someone correct me if I'm wrong!

 

[broadwayblue]

Here's a link to a pic of the a7v266:

a7v266

can't wait! supposed to be out by the end of March.

 

[ChipNOW]

Leo V, the CPU itself won't run any faster, but by god the memory and PCI busses would SCREAM at a 500MHz FSB!!

 

[OS]

<< If I understand things correctly, the CPU doesn't care at all what the FSB is. A &quot;regular&quot; 1GHz Tbird should (theoretically) run just as well at 1000/100 as it would at 1000/166 or even 1000/500 Someone correct me if I'm wrong! >>



Not necessarily true. Back in the day, when socket 7 100 mhz motherboards came out, many of the old Pentiums would not run at 100 mhz bus. That would probably be the case for the K7s.

 

[Soccerman]

Actually , I think Leo's right. 750 only supported pc100, agp2x

and guess what? much of the time, the 750 equalled the KX133 in performance benchmarks.. hows that for inferior technology?

 

[Noriaki]

<< . The lowest price I see on pricewatch is $173+$9 shipping >>

Yeah but they won't ship to Canada, and if they do it's like $173 + $50 shipping + $25 in brokerage fees.

A TBird 1Ghz is $320 at a local shop. I can get an 800@1000 for $250 or an 800 for $200. So its' pretty much right in the middle.

Hardware is more expensive up here.


Random side comment. I've been looking at some old AMD750 vs KX133 reviews...with superbypass the AMD750 managed to perform on par with the KX133 despite lacking AGP4x and PC133 RAM...

Hmm maybe you were right Leo...maybe Via's chipsets are pretty feeble...

 

[Soccerman]

wow, noriaki, you confirmed what I just mentioned above! ;-)

I doubt Via's chipset will perform as well as AMD's 760, though it's probable that it will have fewer stringent requirements, like the KX133 compared to the 750.

 

[Noriaki]

hehehe yeah I was actually intentionally confirming what you said...

after you comment I went and read some old AMD750 reviews.

And I discovered you were right...oh well. Shows what I know. lol