What Mobo for Athlon 1GHz

[funked]

Any suggestions?
I need RAM too.  

[Ripsnort]

 

Originally posted by funked:

I need RAM too.  

I was gonna comment, but, you're a Nancy boy, so, no need to comment.  

WTF is a Mobo?  (Rip-Computer illiterate since DOS left us)

[Lephturn]

Only two choices really, Asus A7V or Abit KT7.  If you want to Overclock and muck about, the Abit is the one.  If you want some adjustment but mainly stability, the Asus is the ticket.  IMHO.  I run Abit boards at home and love 'em, but Asus is a good brand with generally higher quality overall.  If you are a tweaker the Abit is un-matched.

You could try the Abit KT7-RAID if you want to build a system with an IDE raid array for more speed.  

RAM?  I'd try TinyBGA Dimms.    Nice small RAM dimms for good OCing and good airflow in your case.  That or Corsair PC133 CAS2.

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com
 
"A pig is a jolly companion,
Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!"
-- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

[Lephturn]

Check this out:  http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1374

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com
 
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

[bloom25]

Lepturn, you wouldn't happen to be drunk would you?    The a7v will overclock MUCH easier than the kt7.  (It's what I'm running right now.  Thunderbird 700 @ 900Mhz.)  Only the Asus board has dip switches that allow you to pick the multiplier if you know how.

Both boards actually have quite a few bugs.  The a7v and kt7 both have problems with vortex 2 soundcards (Diamond MX300 is especially bad).  This isn't 100% true though, I'm running an Aureal SQ2500 just fine after many hours of work.  Once you get the a7v working correctly, it is a great board.

The a7v also performs quite a bit better than the kt7 in every benchmark I've seen.

Check out www.tomshardware.com  for an interesting article comparing the VIA KT133 MBs and another article on how to overclock easily with the a7v.  Both are fine boards in the end, but the edge goes to the a7v for asus' much better quality control.  (Abit has the WORST RMA rate of any MB manufacturer.)

If you aren't interested in top performance or overclocking, Epox also makes a nice board.  I don't remember the model number right now though.



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[Lephturn]

I'm just going off of what I've read bloom, and my experience with other Abit boards. Actually what you wrote pretty much mirrors exactly what I said above, with the possible exception of the OCing abilities.  I've built several machines with Abit boards, including the fantastic BP6 (Dual Celeron 366@500).

The reviews I've read give the Abit the edge in overclocking based on finer adjustments and more voltage options.  The Sharky's article also picked the Microstar, so that would be one to look at as well.

I do agree that Abit's quality control isn't up to par with the others, but have not had a bad experience with them.  Still, if I was buying right now I'd likely go with the Asus or the Microstar.  However, if you want to get some RAID lovin', the Abit KT7-RAID is the answer.  No matter what you decide to get, I'd deal with a reputable local computer store that will warranty the parts if there is any problem.

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com
 
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

[This message has been edited by Lephturn (edited 12-02-2000).]

[bloom25]

The MSI (microstar) isn't too bad, it has a pretty nice fuzzy logic feature that minorly overclocks the FSB.  (You can do that on the ASUS and ABIT as well manually.)

BTW:  The Asus a7v has an onboard Promise ATA 100 controller.  If this wasn't good enough, it can be easily modified into a raid controller by putting 1 resistor between 2 pins on the Promise chip.  Even easier is to stick the resistor into a free IDE connnector.

You mentioned the Abit's higher maximum voltage.  Although this isn't of much importance to me personally, if you want to cook silicon at over 1.9V a single resistor modification exists that let you go over the 1.85V the a7v normally allows.)

Just about all the boards for the Thunderbird are pretty good.  I'd stick with either the Asus or the Abit though.



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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[bloom25]

Check out this article:
 http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q3/000919/index.html

It's pretty long, and a tiny bit out of date, since new DDR SDRAM boards are currently coming on the market.  On the whole though it's still a very good comparison that includes benchmarks, etc.

(BTW:  All new A7V have the dip switches.)

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bloom25
THUNDERBIRDS

[Lephturn]

Ahhhhh.. dip switches.  I like dip switches.  

I had an old US Robotics 28.8 internal modem for YEARS that I kept around just because it had dip switches. <G>

------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com
 
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"