Motherboard opinions for Athlon XP

My choice

Well thats a tough question to answer. There are so many factors to choose from. Cheap, expensive, performance, stability. etc. etc. My personnal choice lately has been Asus and Gyga-byte. I had the Asus A7V and upgraded to the Giga-Byte GA-7DXR for DDR support. The Giga-Byte is not the fastest board but for my uses it has everything including RAID, which I just set up. Two IBM deskstars running RAID-0

If I had to choose again and not pick one of the above I would try the Soyo Dragon +.

Thanks all

Boeingfixer

Another Choice

I have used and also use again some of the offerings from MSI like the k7t266 Pro or pro 2, MSI has them in different varieties with tons of features like onboard audio, raid and all the goodies. MSI has also been including a USB kit to netowrk 2 computers together off the USB bus called PC 2 PC. It may not be the fastest way to have a small network but it is one of the cheapest.

I recently bought a Jetway board with o/b sound, which cost about £60 and would support up to XP1800+.

As for ABIT caps blowing, I have an Abit VP6 and have had no problems with it, Best board I ever bought.

get a soltek board, easy overclocking, very stable......I put a 1.4ghz amd tbird on the $99 purple ray with DDR and ata 133 (www.newegg.com) overclocks to 1.57ghz on its own, no hassle, no lockups. And with the ata 133, it boots XP pro in 26 seconds. Get the amd retial xp 1800 for about $160 also from newegg. Soltek makes a nice board, even comes with Drive Image, and Partition Magic

Get an ABIT mobo, we have 3 in our house! All are perfect, and are probably one of the easiest mobos to overclock, with the BIOS feature Soft Menu III it lets you change the Bus speed, multiplier and voltage real easy!

Re: Reccomended MoBo

I just found another one too, I am picking up the Shuttle (spacewalker) AK-31A. It officially supports up to the 1800+ XP its about $80 US. Or the DFI AD-70SC which goes all the way to 2100+ XP for about $90 US. Hope this helps.

Re: Re: Reccomended MoBo

My man, i will advise to get the Ak35, which i think it's a better perf mtb and i think Soyo Dragon is a good buy! Cheers!

I have always believed in the "you get what you pay for" saying. Selling computers all day, it couldnt be more true. When I buy a motherboard or a PSU I usually buy high end if I can afford to do so. It just gives me a good piece of mind.

Acutally, after sometimes of playing OC around comp. I find stability is the key word for me now. Speed after the Gigahertz break thru, it seems like the diff is not so great for me, esp used it for surfing, mp3 and games. Cheers!

Motherboard opinions please

Well I just jumped onboard. I was reading reviews
on the 3D about motherboards. I plan on making the purchase for a new one this week, but I find myself still undecided, only on board, not cpu. It will definitely be AthlonXP and most likely 2.0 or 2.1. I can't decide whether to go with the newest 333 or the more tested 266 chipsets. In the 266, I've looked at the Soyo Dragon, Asus A7V266E, FIC AN11 Stealth and BioStar M7VIB. I"m interested in the Asus A7V333, BioStar M7VIF and the Gigabyte7VTXH+. Any suggestions from owners?


*merged by mod with previous thread that discusses the same topic

Hey albacooch,

Since I am the first to get you, welcome to 3DS forums. I am fairly new too. I joined at the begining of March.

Personnally, I have the Giga-Byte GA-7DXR. It has all the bells and whistles including RAID. I switch back and forth on the RAID part but have used it and it works GREAT. I have used ASUS in the past and was very pleased with their boards. '

If you haven't gone there yet or don't know about it, here is AMD's list for approved motherboards.

AMD MoBo List

I try to stick close to their list as I run into fewer problems with boards that are approved. But ASUS, FIC, and Giga-Byte all make fine boards. To be honest I don't have any experiance with the others. I have heard good things about the Soyo though.

Good luck with the choice and if you need anymore help just ask !!

Welcome to 3DSforums!

I would recommend the 333 mobos if the RAM is easily available. Anyway, if I remember correctly, the 333 mobos only give a marginal speed increase over the KT266A mobos.

Here are some reviews:

http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/mainboards/iwill/xp333r/
http://www.hardwarepub.com/reviews/motherboards/epoxkt333/
http://www.tweakers.com.au/articles/motherboard/asus_a7v333/page1.asp

THe review on HardOCP provides benchmarks compared to an EPOX 8KHA+ (I'm using one of that. It's really nice and goes easy on your wallet too ).

Hope that helps!

Search Feature is Your Friend
Example:
Recommended MoBo Combo with AMD XP
http://www.3dspotlight.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=223

AMD-XP Motherboard Compatibility
AMD-XP Motherboard Compatibility

ABit system boards? I have no problem with them. In my older machine I have a BH6, and I haven't had a problem with it ever. It's a wonderful board, the stablest I've ever had. I haven't had any experiences with the newer boards, just that one.
I haven't heard anything bad almost at all about the EPOX. I'd certainly reccomend it.
The sysbo I use with my Athlon XP is a ASUS A7V266. It's great, and the price is certainly going down with the introduction of the A7V333, so maybe consider that one.