A7V266 available!?

[Anavrin]

I just bought an Asus A7V266 (KT266 chipset). And the store says it'll be here 2 days from now (Monday). I'm deathly worried though. I've yet to see a single benchmark of this beast, let alone even an official announcement on Asus' website. I saw the semi-announcement by Asus (where it shows a picture of the board on AMD3D).

So, what's the catch? Do you think I'm buying an engineering sample? How come there's absolutely NOTHING on this board? Even Asus' CeBit site has nothing on this (but plenty on the A7A266). I'm pretty sure I made a good buy as the KT133A is a great chipset and I'm assuming its DDR based successor will be even better. But still... no benchmarks scare me.

How come benchmarks sites don't even have this board yet and a Canuck like me is able to purchase it?!

 

[EpsiIon]

I don't know, but if you get it and it rocks, PM me! PLEASE!

 

[John]

Sounds like vaporware (right now) to me....

 

[Anavrin]

Mmm... as pessimistic as that is, I think you may be right and I think the mobo will actually come next week rather than 2 days from now. But that's just my pessimism.

The good news: Well, looks like Via announced the mass shipment of KT266 since mid January. So if I really am getting a A7V266, then it'll probably be the final version.

But still... why doesn't anandtech have one yet?! Or rather, why haven't they posted up benchmarks?

Maybe it's perform so well that they're all busy playing Q3A with 250 FPS in 640x480@16bits and no geometric details at all

 

[Judgement]

Feel free to post the site you got it at so I can do some ...


Investigating

 

[Anavrin]

Well, they don't have a website. I got them from an ad in the Computer Paper.

Live in Toronto?

I have to admit, the store was a tad shady...

 

[Judgement]

I'd just wait, its not worth getting screwed over to get it a week early even if the add is correct.

 

[Anavrin]

Well, I'd play it safe... if there were any other damn DDR motherboards here in Canada!!

The A7M266 is selling at insane prices. I certainly ain't going for that.

And nobody sells the FIC AD11 here.

Nobody sells the MSI K7 Master at all.

Nobody sells the Gigabyte 7DX... not that I want that if it was available.

I mean.. it's Asus and it's KT266. Can I really go *that* wrong?

 

[Soccerman]

Anavrin, first of all, there are Gigabyte AMD760 boards on sale here in Canada, as well as ASUS's A7M266. I haven't seen one incling of MSI's K7T Master, based on the 760, in retailers accross the world. don't know why though (Tom's Hardware has had one for a few months).

I'm just wondering why people are caught up with anticipation for this KT266??

 

[broadwayblue]

i hope this board comes is available soon...i've been waiting for a long time.

 

[Anavrin]

Because all the current AMD760 mobos aren't too good :\

Oh yeah, I meant to say that I'm well aware of Asus' tech support negligence in my above posting. But Asus still outputs fast and fairly stable products.

 

[Anavrin]

Oh man... I just had a thought overnight.

The most reasonable explanation is that the store simply messed up their ad and it's actually an A7A266. That'd really suck :\

 

[Howard]

Hey Soccerman, there's no T at the end of K7, although, there usually is.

 

[Ender78]

Who is it ? What store is it ?

 

[Anavrin]

Union Computers.

Intersection of Yonge and Eglington.

 

[Soccerman]

Because all the current AMD760 mobos aren't too good

they're not bad.. the only complaint I have is that they only have 2 Dimm slots, I'd like to see 3 or 4!

Yucky, yeah this is weird, how does MSI distinguish it's KT133 based mobo from it's 760 based mobo??

they have the K7T Pro (KT133 I think?), The K7T Pro 2 (KT133), the K7T Pro2a (Still KT133), the K7T Turbo (KT133A) and the K7T Master (KT133).

is that list correct? is the mobo based on the 760 just called a K7 Master??

 

[Anavrin]

Well, let's see...
A7M -> being recalled and AMD doesn't approve of it running at 266 Mhz FSB.
AD11 -> great board, crappy availability and price.
7DX -> slowest one out there.
M7MIA -> availability and slightly slow.
that AOpen board (forgot name) -> Vaporware.
K7 Master -> ditto.
any MAGiK1 base board -> Too many revisions for my liking and the memory performance is crappy. Little to no benchmarks on the most recent revisions.

So who can blame me for looking forward to KT266 boards? I mean, VIA finally fixed their slow memory bus with the KT133A. I didn't think they'd be able to do that after their crappy P3 post-BX boards.

Yeap, MSI's terrible in naming their AMD boards. It's either a 4-digit number, or a Kxxx XXXX. And the AMD760 is indeed the K7 Master. No 'T' anywhere in 'K7'.

 

[Soccerman]

A7M -> being recalled and AMD doesn't approve of it running at 266 Mhz FSB. - NEVER HEARD OF THAT??
AD11 -> great board, crappy availability and price. - true
7DX -> slowest one out there. - depends on which version you have.. there's one with ONLY 100mhz FSB support, and one with both..
M7MIA -> availability and slightly slow. - Never heard of it!
that AOpen board (forgot name) -> Vaporware. - How many people here buy AOpen boards today?
K7 Master -> ditto. - yes, WHERE the FSCK is that board???
any MAGiK1 base board -> Too many revisions for my liking and the memory performance is crappy. Little to no benchmarks on the most recent revisions. - were we talking about Ali's chipset??

there appear to be alot of odd things when it comes to the 760, it is true. I've never heard of the A7M266 having a problem.

the AD11 is a great board, you can buy it online.

Gigabyte's DDR based boards are very available, but because AMD found a problem in their chipset, they decided to release the ones they had, but partly disabled so that there wouldn't be a problem with the motherboard yet they could still sell them. They later released a fixed version, that does both 100 and 133mhz fsb/memory.

I wish MSI would release their board.. I don't think they will, otherwise they would have already.

it appears though, that the 760 will not be the chipset we hoped, simply becuase AMD doesn't care about it. they DO however, care about the 760MP, so, I think that will be a chipset to look at..

 

[Anavrin]

>A7M -> being recalled and AMD doesn't approve of it running at 266 Mhz FSB. - NEVER HEARD OF THAT??

Search for the A7M in Anandtech News. You'll see 3 or so articles on it being discontinued and that Asus is replacing A7M boards with A7A266 (ALi MAGiK) for customers. Calling OEMs in my area confirmed that Asus is recalling all their A7M boards and they refuse to sell it. But the ones that do sell it charge $280-300 for it (probably because it's so rare now).

> 7DX -> slowest one out there. - depends on which version you have.. there's one with ONLY 100mhz FSB support, and one with both..

7DXC -> 100 Mhz DDR FSB max.
7DX -> 133 Mhz DDR FSB max. The 7DX is the one that supports both, but it's extremely slow compared to the other AMD760s.

> M7MIA -> availability and slightly slow. - Never heard of it!

It's Biostar's AMD760 board. It's as available as the FIC AD11 is.

> that AOpen board (forgot name) -> Vaporware. - How many people here buy AOpen boards today?
K7 Master -> ditto. - yes, WHERE the FSCK is that board???

:\

> any MAGiK1 base board -> Too many revisions for my liking and the memory performance is crappy. Little to no benchmarks on the most recent revisions. - were we talking about Ali's chipset??

Yeap, ALi MAGiK1. The Asus A7A266 is replacing the A7M266 with this chipset. Hopefully the KT266 can outdo both.

I don't suppose anyone else has seen the A7V266 available anywhere?

 

[Anavrin]

Revival bump.

The store said today that the board is on backorder. Hmm.. :\

Anyone seen one? Or can anyone direct me to a review of it? I don't care if it doesn't have benchmarks. I just want to verify that this motherboard is finalized.