HotHardware had a review pitting 4 RAID 266A boards, including Asus and MSI versions. They declared the Abit the winner because it had the fastest stable FSB score (which is good if you don't have an unlocked CPU) and its Highpoint RAID controller beat out all the other Promise RAID boards by 10%. The hard drives used for the test were a pair of 7200 rpm UDMA100's, so the better performance wasn't due to using the new 133 drives.
Soyo got criticized for not having some obscure voltage adjustment, which I guess will probably be added in a BIOS update. No matter, the Soyo beat all other boards on overclocking. The author of the article clearly showed anti-Soyo bias by failing to pay any tribute to this feat. The flashing Abit ads on Hot H's web site may explain the skew, because my reading of the article led me to think that Soyo had won.
Soyo had by far the most and best features, with the front USB's, the card reader, the impressive sound capabilities and onboard NIC. None of the other boards have these features, discounting MSI, which is simply not the best all around board, even though it's the only one with USB 2.0. My guess is adapter cards will be free-after-rebate around the time products that can use this are prevalent, by which time I will be ready for another motherboard upgrade anyway.
Soyo and MSI were lavish with other in-the-box extras, but Soyo had something really useful -- a software package that includes Norton antiVirus and Ghost. Since I would like those programs, Soyo is the best value. HH never considers price, but Abit is about $30 more expensive.
However, I think the RAID difference makes Abit the best board if money is no object. By the time I buy the software, the soundcard, the extra NIC card, the USB headers and pay the difference in price, it could cost $150 more. Or more if I decide I need the smart card reader for security.
Abit will have better resale value and it's a better board. Based on the HH article, one can ignore MSI and Asus. Tom'sHardware and several other reviewers have found Soyo to be the best or second best. HH is the first reviewer to test RAID with 2 hard drives. Kudos. On the negative side, the graphs are horrible. It's grossly misleading to have graphs that cut off 95% of the range and magnify trivial differences into deceptive dinosaur-sized results. If proper technique was used, all of these boards are virtually tied in just about every test, except for RAID, which is why I'm talking about Abit.
Can't talk about Anand's review, because they have become followers instead of leaders. It's pitiful that AT can't get it together to review boards in a timely way. Anand deserves some rebuke on this because this is a very fast developing scene and some of these boards have been out for months. By the time they make their report these boards will already be victims of creeping obsolescense.
That's my 2 cents. What do you think?
Soyo got criticized for not having some obscure voltage adjustment, which I guess will probably be added in a BIOS update. No matter, the Soyo beat all other boards on overclocking. The author of the article clearly showed anti-Soyo bias by failing to pay any tribute to this feat. The flashing Abit ads on Hot H's web site may explain the skew, because my reading of the article led me to think that Soyo had won.
Soyo had by far the most and best features, with the front USB's, the card reader, the impressive sound capabilities and onboard NIC. None of the other boards have these features, discounting MSI, which is simply not the best all around board, even though it's the only one with USB 2.0. My guess is adapter cards will be free-after-rebate around the time products that can use this are prevalent, by which time I will be ready for another motherboard upgrade anyway.
Soyo and MSI were lavish with other in-the-box extras, but Soyo had something really useful -- a software package that includes Norton antiVirus and Ghost. Since I would like those programs, Soyo is the best value. HH never considers price, but Abit is about $30 more expensive.
However, I think the RAID difference makes Abit the best board if money is no object. By the time I buy the software, the soundcard, the extra NIC card, the USB headers and pay the difference in price, it could cost $150 more. Or more if I decide I need the smart card reader for security.
Abit will have better resale value and it's a better board. Based on the HH article, one can ignore MSI and Asus. Tom'sHardware and several other reviewers have found Soyo to be the best or second best. HH is the first reviewer to test RAID with 2 hard drives. Kudos. On the negative side, the graphs are horrible. It's grossly misleading to have graphs that cut off 95% of the range and magnify trivial differences into deceptive dinosaur-sized results. If proper technique was used, all of these boards are virtually tied in just about every test, except for RAID, which is why I'm talking about Abit.
Can't talk about Anand's review, because they have become followers instead of leaders. It's pitiful that AT can't get it together to review boards in a timely way. Anand deserves some rebuke on this because this is a very fast developing scene and some of these boards have been out for months. By the time they make their report these boards will already be victims of creeping obsolescense.
That's my 2 cents. What do you think?