Reccomend a board for Tbird 1.4ghz?

[Justin]

I recently came across a new, very cheap, 1.4ghz AMD Thunderbird... stepping AYHJA (nice core, good for overclocking).

I want to slap it down in a board, however I don't own any Socket A boards that support 133/266mhz FSB.

I want to get a board that is decent, but I do NOT need something capable of using the latest and greatest XP 32194721976526554+ and cabable of supporting 7326149871643 TB of DDR60000 RAM. For those of you who own tbirds, any parcticular suggestions? Most of the boards I found were still very expensive, and the only cheap boards were SDRAM. And since I have this tbird anyways, if I'm going to use it I might as well make it worth my while.

So, any suggestions to that end?

And, for those of you who have tbirds, any oc'ing stories? I know the tbird is not the greatest CPU in the world for that, but I'm sure I can push it slightly.

 

[iss]

the ECS K7S5A it is fast, stable and cheap ($ 56.00 at newegg.com) it also has the added bonus of being able to run PC133 SDRAM or PC2100 DDR whichever you prefer to use.

 

[Justin]

Read up on that board and I think it's right up my alley.. thanks for the suggestion

it's true.. soul is buying a board that isn't an overclockers dream!!!

(heh, however this will make an excellent addition to my growing cube)

Again, thanks

 

[vegasgmc]

Ive built 3 computers with that ECS board and havent had any problems with it and all the reviews Ive read were really good. I think Im going to use it when I build my new rig.

 

[Didou]

The ECS K7S5a is a very good board but it's past its prime. It doesn't support 166 FSB CPUs, doesn't have USB 2.0 ( there's only two USB 1.1 ports ), doesn't have RAID or S-ATA.

But for a secondary PC, it's perfect. Very stable & fast.

The only problem I've had with it, was getting an ATI Rage Pro to work for more then 10 minutes on it. I kept having random crashes, while playing games, surfing & even if it was idling. One GF2MX400 later, stability problems disappeared.

 

[Justin]

Originally posted by Didou
The ECS K7S5a is a very good board but it's past its prime. It doesn't support 166 FSB CPUs, doesn't have USB 2.0 ( there's only two USB 1.1 ports ), doesn't have RAID or S-ATA.

But for a secondary PC, it's perfect. Very stable & fast.

The only problem I've had with it, was getting an ATI Rage Pro to work for more then 10 minutes on it. I kept having random crashes, while playing games, surfing & even if it was idling. One GF2MX400 later, stability problems disappeared.

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
I want to slap it down in a board, however I don't own any Socket A boards that support 133/266mhz FSB.

I want to get a board that is decent, but I do NOT need something capable of using the latest and greatest XP 32194721976526554+ and cabable of supporting 7326149871643 TB of DDR60000 RAM. For those of you who own tbirds, any parcticular suggestions? Most of the boards I found were still very expensive, and the only cheap boards were SDRAM. And since I have this tbird anyways, if I'm going to use it I might as well make it worth my while.

Again, I do not need a board capable of 166mhz FSB, USB 2.0, Raid, et cetera. I will not be upgrading this machine. It is for the 1.4ghz Tbird, some pc2100 RAM, and that's it. It will replace soulbox (1.13ghz p3, 768mb ram, voodoo 5 5500 AGP) as my gaming and development box.

Although I do not buy into that phrase, "past its prime" at all. A machine is always good as long as you have a use for it. My 486DX4100@120 is still kicking and is a wonderful file server. Dual 233mhz pentium box is an awesome web/ftp/mysql/email server. 233mhz Pentium with 4mb Diamond Stealth 3d is superb for old DOS games and as an mp3 player.

You see, I never did, nor ever will, buy into "latest and greatest". Simply because it is old, does not mean it is inferior.

 

[Didou]

Originally posted by Soul Harvester
Simply because it is old, does not mean it is inferior.

It is inferior to what is currently available.

For the same price you can prolly get an nForce 1 mainboard which is also very stable & much faster.

One thing I don't like about the K7S5a is that I can't seem to get MBM to work properly with it. The only way to see the temp readings, etc is to go into the BIOS. It doesn't have any emergency shutdown routines either.

It all depends on what you intend to do with this machine. If it's supposed to run 24/7, I wouldn't go with the K7S5a. If it's a machine friends can play on when they come over once in a while, then no problem.

 

[Justin]

Originally posted by Didou
It is inferior to what is currently available.

For the same price you can prolly get an nForce 1 mainboard which is also very stable & much faster.

One thing I don't like about the K7S5a is that I can't seem to get MBM to work properly with it. The only way to see the temp readings, etc is to go into the BIOS. It doesn't have any emergency shutdown routines either.

It all depends on what you intend to do with this machine. If it's supposed to run 24/7, I wouldn't go with the K7S5a. If it's a machine friends can play on when they come over once in a while, then no problem.

I somehow doubt I can get an NForce 1 for less then $55 but if I can please show me where.


Also all my machines run 24/7.. none of them are ever turned off.

 

[Didou]

If you want a known brand, I found an ASUS A7N266 for 68$ on Pricewatch. For that price you have onboard VGA, LAN & SOUND ( no TwinBank though ).

 

[Justin]

Originally posted by Didou
If you want a known brand, I found an ASUS A7N266 for 68$ on Pricewatch. For that price you have onboard VGA, LAN & SOUND ( no TwinBank though ).

I really don't want onboard video... onboard lan and sound is nice though.


Did you find the ECS to be unstable for constant use? I'm looking at some KT* boards that look pretty decent, but I'm really trying to spend under $60. I'm looking for stability more then anything.

 

[vegasgmc]

They are totally stable. I havent gotten any complaints. I also like that they have slots for SD RAM and DDR RAM and will take Durons, Athlons and most XP's. You can start out cheap and upgrade later if you want.

 

[Vehementi]

There's an ASUS A7V266E for $63 on Pricewatch...might want to check this out. Anyone who has it will tell you it's a great board...myself included

 

[Didou]

It completely refused to cooperate with an ATI Radeon VE ( it wasn't a Rage Pro ) but things were fine with a MX400. I've never had any troubles with it besides that. Agissi has a problem with it reporting 66mhz FSB when it's actually 133 but if performance doesn't suffer, I don't think it's a problem.

PS. I've only tryed this board with TBirds & Durons ( Spitfire & Morgan ). I've never tryed any AthlonXPs on it.

 

[videobruce]

A low end or discountinued board is $50
A Mid end current board is $80

Go with a current middle of the road board!

The new nForce2 boards are $120+, the price of middle of the road M/B's 3 years ago! Can't really see spending more than $130 for one anyway!

Have to save up for one of those $400 video cards!