Pricewatch lists the following prices: P4 1.6 - $136 Abit SD7 - $95 XP 1700 - $114 Abit KR7 - $115 As you can see, the prices are about the same. I am told the 1.6 P4 will overclock to 2.2, and the 1700 will reach over 1.6 Also on the SD7 you can use the 333mhz PC2700 (512Meg - $220), the KR7 only does PC133. If you are willing to pay 3 times more for the better RAM, wouldn't the P4 be the right choice for the money?
As far as I know it should be very possible to use DDR on KR7 ? Read somewhat many reviews on the KR7 and all sites were using DDR PC2100 - 3000.. Anyway i would go for the AMD system.. Would never be fooled into buying a P4
The KR7A is a DDR motherboard. I'd go with the AMD combo. Overclocking is safer as it is possible to unlock the multiplier on the chip, so other components need not be run out of spec. The more major reasons though....DDR memory and P4 is not a good combo, as the P4 is a high-latency, high-bandwidth system, matching RDRAM in that respect. DDR is a low-latency, medium-high (but not AS high) bandwidth system, which matches the lower latency inherent in the shorter pipeline design of the AMD CPU. With AMD being a core member of "Team DDR", and designing their product around it, while the Pentium 4 was designed around RAMBUS, it would seem foolish to partner P4 with such a different system.
I'm seeing some pretty convincing information on the P4 1.6A, such as: http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/cpus/intel/p416a/ Also you don't have to screw with the chip physically to get the extra umph... I have seen several reviews showing over 2.2, some at 2.4, with very little effort or special cooling.
the only problem is.... P4s suck! That P4 may overclock to 2.2Ghz, but really speaking, if you got the XP1700+ upto around 1900+ area, which is easily possible with a decent heatsink such as an Alpha PAL8045T, you are looking to close, if not better performance. The clock speeds are useless in todays age, cos really speaking the XP1800 holds its own against a P4 2Ghz, never mind an XP1700 clocked to somewhere near an XP1900 or better. Especially on a KR7, which happens to be the best AMD based board out at the moment. I would go for the AMD platform.
I don't know why everyone is saying "wait for the KT333". I personally wouldn't want to wait for them. Everyone knows that the second generation of VIA's chipsets are always the best.
they are exactly the same as kt266a except have ata133 built in ( or something) so no latency issue and officially support 2700 ddr cause it has 1/5 and 1/6 pci dividers in the bios.
jcmkk has obviously not researched the subject at all, or otherwise he'd know several things.... 1) KT333 is just a modification of KT266A. 2) KT333A is being released at the same time, and differs only in offering a few extra features, like AGP 8X, USB 2, etc Since KT333 is just an evolution of the already excellent KT266A, there's no problems like there have been in the past.
well I went ahead and got the 1.8a and the SD7. It fires up with no problem to 140FSB giving me 2.52 stable at 1.75V. MIPS are at 4725 (made over 5000 once), 9872 on the MultiMedia test, but my 2100 Corsair CL2.5 is running a bit slow at 1600MB/SEC iSSE2...I am seeing where people are getting well over 2000MB/SEC, so I am still working on that.. Over all this system kicks! One strange problem though, my BIOS is showing 90C at stock settings...something is definately wrong with the monitoring...
