Motherboard opinions for Athlon XP

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Reccomended MoBo

Hey any1 know of a good motherboard/processor combo?
i need a fairly cheap mobo but with a AMD 1800+ processor
 
I love my MOBO. How many peole do you hear saying that this day in age. I have the XP 1800 and the EPox 8HKA+ MOBO. This thing has been solid as the Hoover Dam for me for 4 months. The only new gadgets it does not include are RAID and AGP Pro (which is useless now anyway). If it is RAID you want then you need to get the SOYO Dragon. The SOYO dragon has everything, but for a big price too. The EPoX can be picked up at FRY's Electronics now for 89 bucks or so, and don't be fooled by the price. www.TomsHardware.com gave this board a top spot in his review of the top 14 mobo's for the XP.:hotbounce



http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q4/011126/index.html
 
3DS Motherboard Reviews:
http://www.3dspotlight.com/reviews/motherboards.shtml

agreed, $145.88 Soyo K7V Dragon Plus Socket A (VIA KT266A) is the hot ticket right now.

Budget boards:
Shuttle AK35GT-R Socket A (VIA KT266A)
& the low cost $55.76 Elitegroup ECS K7S5A ( SiS735) which can be buggy.

Good Deal:
http://www.azzo.com/test2/specials_combos.html
ABIT KR7A-RAID & AMD XP1800 CPU w/CoolerMaster HSF $365
with FREE SHIPPING in the USA*
*Shipping method is FedEx Saver and for Continental US only
 
as previoulsy said, if you want a budget board the best option are the shuttle and the elite mobos. the ak35 is the most recent shuttle but i've heard that the ak31 can be had for a very reasonable price now (~$55). if you want to spend a bit more then you can't go wrong with the Epox 8KHA+ and the Abit KR7-A.

SamJ
 
I second the Abit KR7-A. I have an Abit KT7A, and it's made me a loyal Abit buyer. Actually the KT7A version 1.3 or newer will support an xp chip of upto 1.9 ghz. That would be a good solution because now they are quite cheap and still perform very well.
 
ABIT + IWILL = Overclockability
ASUS + EPOX = Stable
TYAN = oh momma
JETWAY = Budget

PC Chips = Need I say more ???
 
Personally, i'm using MSI KT266A Pro RU! I think among all the contestant, this mtb performs fairly well in term of performance but it shine in it's value added utilities such on board USB2.0 and best of all, we have a great services fr my local supplier!

Relates my persoanl exp, i spoilt my mtb once and the supplier only took 3 days to change it for me! Not bad for this board rite!

Oh i think it's the most stable board among the rest! Beside that it's red in color! Cheers!
 
Newer ever buy an ABIT mobo!!!! Over the last couple of years I have had to change almost 200 ABITs at work, all with the same problem, blown caps and guss what they still use the same *darned caps on their latest models! Need I add ABIT mobos only have a one year warranty so if it blows up a year from now (like it most likley will) you will be left with a couple of ram sticks and a cpu that you most likley will not find a compatible mobo for!

(*edited by mod)
 
Re: Mobo

Originally posted by henderrob
MSI KT266 DDR would be my choose of best buy in Canada at CAD170

I will not buy MSI again..After they completely stopped support of the K7 Master while it was in its prime I swore to only buy Abit or Asus from now on.

Here is AMD's list of recommended system boards:

http://www1.amd.com/athlon/config
 
Why do the capacitors blow? Is it from heat or do they just wear out after a year cause they're poor quality or what? Now I'm worried though cause my Abits approaching it's first birthday. I guess if it dies it will be a good excuse to go out and buy a good DDR board or whatever other flashy fast thing they have out then.
 
I second the Epox 8KHA+. However, there were a lot of problems relating to it if you O/C the board.

But a lot has been researched about that board and from my experience, I haven't had any probs with it... Haven't tried O/C-ing it yet coz I don't need the extra power.. YET :D

Anyway, here's the link for the config guide:

http://www.amdmb.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79836
 
From many reviews I've read the Soyo Dragon Plus seems like the best motherboard for XP proccessors, it usually gets the highest benchmarks in a variety of tests, although it is not the best overclocker in the field.

Just my opinion, thats what I would buy at the current moment to go with my XP.
 
I know I was complaining earlier about my K7 Master and MSI's lack of support for the board. On a positive note, it is a very stable board and is very reliable as well. I have never had any issues with it. I would like to say that the new MSI board that LNCPapa pointed out is a very nice board with many good features.

Im surprised to hear about the bad Abit experience. I have over equated Abit with stability and reliability.
 
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!:D
 
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