Which Athlon chipset?

[HarryW]

Some Athlon boards use the Via KT266 chipset, some use the AMD 761 chipset... any thoughts on which is preferable? Both seem to support PC2100 DDRRAM. What's the difference?

[JungleMan]

761 for now. Although i hear Via's new revision of the KT266 is supposed to be a lot better.

Ask these kinds of questons at www.pctsonline.com

[HarryW]

Can you give any reasons?

[JungleMan]

It's faster and more compatible than the KT266. I can't find links right now but I've seen a ton of benchmarks with similar configs, and the 761 always performed faster. And there are no Creative/VIA nightmares to deal with either.

Good 761 boards are the Epox 8k7a(+), Abit KG7, or the gigabyte 7dxr.

[HarryW]

What about the Asus A7V/A7M ?

[JungleMan]

I never liked the A7M because you can only overclock via FSB increases

A7V is based on the VIA chipset and it's $199, and only one person seems to sell it on pricewatch. For the price i can get an Abit kg7, with AMD 761, 6 PCIs, and 4 DDR slots. (Some people think Abit boards are iffy though, so you may want to go with one of the other two i mentioned.)

Also, remember, nForce is just around the corner...

[HarryW]

Is nForce going to be better than, say, GeForce 3 though? I've seen some news coverage of it and I got the impression it wasn't intended for the the high-end market, except in laptops.

[JungleMan]

the nForce is a *good* integrated board, but you can still add on stuff. Say you want a GF3. no there is no nForce board planned at the moment with a GF3 onboard but it has an AGP slot, so you can pop one in. (it'd be cool ifyou could use the other onboard video as a 2nd monitor) And since you won't have to install sound (onboard sound is better than most), LAN, etc, you'll have more PCI slots.

Also it has this new bus technology, i forgot what it's called, its supposed to go 30% faster, and that's the main thing attracting a lot of people.

[HarryW]

I don't really care whether it's on a card or onboard, I'm just wondering about price/performance. Is nForce intended to be a way of getting cheap, good 3D performance or is it intended to be better performance-wise than previous products?

Or is the bus tech transferable to forthcoming high-end products?

[JungleMan]

It sort of combines both..all the hardcore guys seem to be excited about it so you may want to look at it...

I have to head out to school now, you might want to post this on pctsonline.com

[plenderj]

Would I get a thump if I *acchemed* the P4 processor ?

[HarryW]

If you want to pimp for Intel feel free, but you'll notice that the question isn't "Which P4 chipset?"

What I'm most interested in is what the differences between the two chipsets are. Or if there are other alternatives.

[denniswrenn]

(onboard sound is better than most)

Give examples of what it's better than... I bet my SB Live! MP3+ 5.1 will beat the **** out of it

[JungleMan]

back on topic..i don't want to even hear P4

[SurfDemon]

Sorry I'm late into the discussion.

I just built a system with an ASUS A7A AliMagic board (It takes both SDR and DDR ram). I'm very impressed with it. It's incredibly stable and runs quite happily at 1.4ghz with a 1.2ghz Athalon. It won't go to 1.5ghz, but I haven't tried anywhere in between yet.

SD

[scoutt]

Originally posted by jpbtennisman
It's faster and more compatible than the KT266. I can't find links right now but I've seen a ton of benchmarks with similar configs, and the 761 always performed faster. And there are no Creative/VIA nightmares to deal with either.

Good 761 boards are the Epox 8k7a(+), Abit KG7, or the gigabyte 7dxr.

that is right. the 761 is capable of overcloacking the FSB higher than the VIA chipset.

for the 761 chipset
http://www.amd.com/news/prodpr/asus.html

for the kt266a chipset (new one)
http://www.via.com.tw/jsp/en/products/apollo/kt266a.jsp

for the kt266 chipset
http://www.via.com.tw/jsp/en/products/apollo/kt266.jsp

[JungleMan]

Originally posted by SurfDemon
Sorry I'm late into the discussion.

I just built a system with an ASUS A7A AliMagic board (It takes both SDR and DDR ram). I'm very impressed with it. It's incredibly stable and runs quite happily at 1.4ghz with a 1.2ghz Athalon. It won't go to 1.5ghz, but I haven't tried anywhere in between yet.

SD

You didn't ... *gulp* sell the ZX-80 did you?

[SurfDemon]

Nah! - Nothing can compete with my ZX-80. I only use the Athalon for playing MP3 and surfing porn (it doesn't look that good in the zx-80 hi-res mode of 256x200x2)

SD