any thoughts, i've been trying to find out some good mobo's for an athlon 1800XP, Requirements, I don't need onboard sound, Onboard lan would be a bonus, as long as it can take 512Mb of memory i'll be happy, RAID would probably not get used, but would provide more IDE channels. other than that, as long as it fits nicely into a coolermaster ATC-201 i'll be pleased. So, any thoughts?
abit kr7a and asus a7v266-e are the two id recommend from personal usage...but depends on wether u want ddr or not...
i had a asus a7a266 that died randomly... and asus is notorious for poor thermal sensors (anywhere from 5-15C higher than actual) i've had good experiences with MSI boards... and abits...
DDR, well i'd be wanting to buy some new memory for it, so i'm not too fussed, I assume its worth it in terms of performance.
get crucial ddr....cant go wrong with it and runs nicely at cas2 without being unstable... got the a7v266-e meself and have been very happy with it as its one of the top performers and is very very stable, have only had 1 bsod so far....the abit is very good also...mate of mine has it but i just prefer asus... the temperature reading is a known problem and this can be adjusted accordingly... but thats just my personal view on things...
get a KT333 board and itll use your internal thermal sensor inside the XP cpu. Epox or MSI one id recommend.
just on that topic...does anyone know wether there will be bios updates for a kt266a mobo to make use of the onboard diode??
Doh, i was looking at the A7N-266-E, spec sheet looks good, time to find a decent UK seller,.. mind you, i'm not going to be buying this till next month.
Now yet again I have to recommend the Soyo K7V Dragon+. You may not need the excellent onboard sound, but everything else you require is there as well. It's a fantastic fast and stable board that looks pretty cool too. That would be my recommendation!
What's stability like on the Dragon +, and is it a KT266A based mobo, also, do you know anywhere in the UK that would be good for them price wise?
So far, the stability on mine has been excellent, No probs at all! And yes, it is based on the KT266a. As for where to get it, Chillblast sell it for a reasonable price and their service is amazing; www.chillblast.com or www.overclock.co.uk sell 'em. They should be around the £139.99 mark.
theres quite a few good boards out there and everyone will have their personal preference, so it really depends on wat features you want which ones you dont and how much you wanna spend....
I also recommend Dragon+ I just got mine! I am running an athlon XP2000+ Just sooooo speedy! I also recommend the exellent service from chilliblast! *pimp*