Asus K8V (purchase planning)

[reverend1313]

I was planning on buying an Asus K8T800 mobo and the a64 3000+ the one with the 512 cache.

My main question was on the memory. I have head that some of the boards and chipsets have had some issues with stability. I had planned on buying all the parts from newegg and had planned on buying a kit of 2 512mb sticks from either corsair or kingston. Both the value ram with lifetime warrenty. I have purchased both manufactors value ram in the past and had nothing but great expierences just wanna check and see if you guys have heard anything.

 

[KnightPalatine]

I'm also planning to upgrade to the Athlon 64.

I've been following the forums extensively for about a month. It seems that the guys with the most knowledge of, and experience with, the A64/K8V combo recommend Kingston HyperX PC3500. It's a bit more than the value RAM, but seems to yield consistently good results. As you've learned, the A64 solution--either the chip itself, the currently available chipsets, or some combination of the two--can be finicky about memory.

Check out posts from Markfw900. He's been both prolific and informative on the A64 proc and the K8V mobo.

 

[Markfw]

Thanks. And if you need links to articles to support my personal experience with this combo, let me know.

 

[KnightPalatine]

UPDATE:

Kingston HyperX PC3500 is down to $129 for the 512MB sticks on newegg. Splits the difference between the $116 low and the $138 high.

Some good deals on HyperX refurbs, too.

 

[reverend1313]

Its ok I had heard the same stuff about mem that you have posted. So I trust ya. It was just confirming what I already had a pretty good idea about. I just didnt want to spend the extra cash if I didnt need to.

Just out of curiousity. I have a dual monitor setup on my main machine which I am rebuilding. I play a lot of games and I also do a lot of multitasking. Do you think it would be worth the extra 130$ to bump it up to a gig of ram or do you think I would be happy with the performance...

PS upgrading from a 1.4ghz AthlonXP 512ram

Great info and responses everyone.

 

[stranger707]

I have just been through a week long hassle with this motherboard and memory. Not that there is anything wrong with the motherboard, but the BIOS is the worst. I spent hours trying to install Win XP Pro, only to have the installation fail (BSODs, or lockups) during the installation. I was ready to give up, when I finally started tweaking the memory settings. I had left them in "AUTO" up to that point, and suffered through a myriad of different problems. And I had good memory that had been proven to work on the mobo in an article on Tom's Hardware - Mushkin 512 MB PC3500 Level II.

Now that the system is running it is absolutely fantastic.

So, be careful with the memory that you use on this motherboard. And if you have problems with lockups and BSODs, tweak the memory settings.

Good luck!