mobo for Athlon

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 8:28 am

I am looking to build myself a new computer and am looking at some Athlon motherboards. Does anyone have a favourite or recommend a specific board? I am probably looking to pick up an Athlon in the 1.4-1.8 GHz range and don't need onboard sound or video.

In the past I have used ECS and Soyo boards and have had good experiences with both. One friend told me that the Soyo SY-K7V was a good, inexpensive ATX board and I have heard that the Abit KR7A is also good. The reviews I have read of both seem complimentary, but I was just wondering what other folks are using.

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 8:59 am

This is the one I am using http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q4/001220/ with no complaints

It will not support your new pc though, but the next generation might..

K0r/\/f1@k€$ · Post by **K0r/\/f1@k€$** » Tue Jun 25, 2002 2:16 pm

I'm looking for an upgrade as well, probably to an XP1800. This will also need a new motherboard. I was looking at the ... Abit KX7. What issues does the higher supported fsb create or is it possible to set the RAM and FSB clock speeds separately?

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Wed Jun 26, 2002 4:31 am

Try this from Abit, looks like the kind of thing you have in mind. Or you could try this it is RAID but the rest of it seems on point.

I (as previously stated) use a soltek board and quite like it so you could try this

The choice is yours!

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 9:04 am

I am bumping my own thread to see if anyone has any experience with either the Shuttle or FIC brands. TigerDirect is offering several on special and in mobo/CPU bundles and I was wondering if anyone has had either good or bad experiences with either brand. Thanks in advance.

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 9:30 am

My first two PC's were Shuttle's. Back in the day of the PIII 500, the Shuttle boards were cheap and so was I. I gave them a shot on the first one and it worked so well, when I built a second, I bought another shuttle.

My most recent selection has been MSI. No complaints there either. Haven't looked at Shuttle's stuff for quite a while but my past experiences were very good.

I still use one of those shuttle's today, over three years now.

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 10:23 am

There's a computer shop in town that uses Shuttle boards because they're inexpensive and I was wondering if they're inexpensive because they're cheap or because they're just inexpensive. I noticed that most of them use Intel and VIA chipsets. Is their driver support good?

Ned Flanders · Post by **Ned Flanders** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 10:50 am

I have had no problems with drivers.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 5:12 am

I seem to be linking to anandtech a lot recently, check here for their value gaming round up, they suggest an MSI board...BTW there is also something about Shuttle on the site, check the main page.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 2:42 pm

I was looking at an Asus A7V333 as my next board, but I'm now waiting to see if the nForce 2 chipset is any good. Dual channel DDR 400, 6.4GB/s memory bandwidth, 8x AGP. Has to be good.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Jul 26, 2002 2:58 pm

Originally posted by Mr Flibble
I was looking at an Asus A7V333 as my next board, but I'm now waiting to see if the nForce 2 chipset is any good. Dual channel DDR 400, 6.4GB/s memory bandwidth, 8x AGP. Has to be good.

I was considering doing much the same thing (buying an a 333 mobo) but to be honest everything is still pretty close to my current machine in architecture, i figure i wait a while and see what pans out. There will be a new AMD chip coming out at the end of the year, it might be good to wait and see what this chip does, it might revolutionise my gaming experience

HighLordDave · Post by **HighLordDave** » Thu Aug 08, 2002 6:47 pm

Has anyone had any experience with MSI motherboards? I found this motherboard at an inexpensive price from http://www.computergeeks.com I was wondering if it's a good board of if it's a cheap board.

Has anyone had any experience with MSI boards? How's their driver support and technical support? Do they have any compatibility issues?

Thanks again in advance.

Mr Flibble · Post by **Mr Flibble** » Thu Aug 08, 2002 6:57 pm

It looks good on paper, but I mostly deal with Gigabyte and Asus so can't comment on performacne or stability.

THG made some good comments about it though.

Phantom Lord · Post by **Phantom Lord** » Fri Aug 09, 2002 12:26 am

I have a MSI board in my current machine (K7 Turbo RAID). It's a pretty good board except some minor design flaws (eg the FSB jumper is placed exactly besides the AGP card holding clip, so I always pull it off if I remove the video card). It has some nice diagnostic features, the support is OK, the manual is very good.

Like Ned once predicted I had some problems with the RAID, but I think these were related to a mechanical problem of the IBM AVER0 - HDD series and not a board issue.