Duron 1GHz combos <$100 Delivered

[Bill00]

Just noticed that PRICEWATCH lists several vendors offering the 1GHz Duron with a variety of MBs and HSFs for less then $100, including shipping. Go to the Pricewatch site and click on the MOTHERBOARD COMBOS link, then the 1GHZ Duron link (or others if desired) to see what is available.

Looked at a few of the vendor's ratings on BizRate and most are in the 7 area. Looks like most of the MBs are retail box and CPUs are OEM.

I put together an ECS K7S5A/1GHz Duron box this week I am well pleased with and that combo with HSF, delivered lists for $99.88. Newegg has that combo WITHOUT the HSF for $109.95 shipped.

 

[tedinde1]

They were $79 for a ecs k7s5a and one gig retail duron last week. You missed out.

 

[RBC]

Yeah, as did most of us. Anyway, this is good info since it could be interpreted as a barometer of things to come. If more of the pricewatch guys are offering deals like these then we should be seeing even better very soon from some of the bigger retailers.

 

[Magicktech]

yea i jumped on the $79 deal from outpost and got the MB yesterday finally... that was a great deal, im sure the $ will keep dropping too...
XP prices are down almost $10 in the last week!

 

[drti]

which mb is better? ecs K7S5A or fic FD11

 

[stingray2]

drti.. you asked about the ECS K7S5A? well I have one, and it is so far the worst motherboard I have ever owned. I would steer clear of it at all costs. you might ask why, well it is very picky on what powersupply you hook up to it. I took me 3 powersupplys it finally get it working, and that was just barely. it still gives me problem, after problem. also, it does not like a lot of memory sticks. right now, I have crucial pc133 in it, and the motherboard will not run at 133, only 100.. I have since set my seven year old up with this piece of junk, its ok for her, but not for me. I now have a shuttle AK35GTR (so far, the best mother board I have ever owned, if only because of the addition of the RAID controller, which allows me to use those RAID ports for normal IDE HD's)
IMHO...

 

[atgep]

I love the K7s5a. I built a new system around this Mobo and have been completely satisfied. I have read that the mobo can be troublesome if you have older equipment. If you are putting together a new system It is the best value for the $$'s. Where else can you get a great board for the price of a sound card. LOL good luck.

 

[Jaylio]

I have built several systems with the k7s5a board. About 12. I have had to return 2 of them. But the ones that work, work great. I havent had any trouble with them at all. Maybe you should return that mb if you are having that much trouble with it. Every system that I own, 4, is built with this board. You cant touch it for the money.

 

[aircooled]

I built 8 machines with the ECS K7S5A. All are problem free so far. Got all the parts from newegg.com.

 

[Bill00]

<<you asked about the ECS K7S5A? well I have one, and it is so far the worst motherboard I have ever owned. I would steer clear of it at all costs.>>

On the various forums I have seen similar comments, but I have also seen MANY like the others on this thread that LOVE the K7S5A. Bearing in mind that probably 98% of the posts on most tech forums are related to those who have problems, I tend to think that although there are some failures, as there are with ANY piece of electronics, in general it is an excellent board.

My own new system, with an Enermax case and 300w PS, along with the MB from Newegg, a 1GHz Duron from TCWO and a single 256 Micron PC133 from Z-Buy has been purring like a kitten since I fired it up the first time and installed Win XP Pro on it 4 days ago.

I have accumulated everything to put this box together over the last several months and here is the breakdown on cost:

Case/MB/TEAC floppy - Newegg $141 delivered
RAM - Z-Buy $25 (no shipping) (October 2001)
Joytech Apollo 32MB AGP - Z-Buy $35 (no shipping) (October 2001)
1GHZ Duron/HSF - TCWO $49 delivered
40GB Maxtor HD - CUSA last fall $79
52X CDROM - Free after MIR
56K Winmodem - Free after MIR
Cendyne 24x10x40 Internal CD-RW - OMax $38 after MIR (will install as soon as my wife gets home from her mother's this PM, which is where I had it delivered)

That totals out to $367 for a pretty decent box, and a couple of niceties are that if I decide to go with DDR when the price drops a bit more, I just pull the PC133 and stick in the DDR. Same with the CPU: when the XP prices drop even more after AMD comes out with the new chips, it is a matter of pulling out the Duron and popping in an XP 2000 or whatever.

As always, YMMV, but there are a LOT of happy campers with this board, and a few who got whacked by the luck of the draw...

 

[RobsTV]

Back on the subject of combo.
Newegg's price comes to $94 before shipping. (MB $54, CPU $40)
Depending on the day, some days they charge CPU shipping, other days they don't.
Even if they charge shipping on both items, total delivered comes to $109.95
Based on how well Newegg's service is, and the greater possibility of defects with low end
products, it seems like a no-brainer to spend the few dollars extra, and buy from Newegg.

Companies like Newegg deserve our everyday business. They earned it with great service.

EDIT:
If you are used to good, quality, full featured boards, this one is not for you.
It has to be the cheapest, skimpiest board I've ever seen.
The only reason to get one of these is if you don't have, or don't plan on getting, DDR ram.
If you have DDR, or will get some, then much, much better boards are available for about $10 to $20 more.

 

[Crzyakta]

Get the newest overclocking BIOS at www.ocworkbench.com allows many more RAM selections and FSB choices to get the most out of this board

 

[Sepen]

Originally posted by: RobsTV
Back on the subject of combo.
Newegg's price comes to $94 before shipping. (MB $54, CPU $40)
Depending on the day, some days they charge CPU shipping, other days they don't.
Even if they charge shipping on both items, total delivered comes to $109.95
Based on how well Newegg's service is, and the greater possibility of defects with low end
products, it seems like a no-brainer to spend the few dollars extra, and buy from Newegg.

Companies like Newegg deserve our everyday business. They earned it with great service.

EDIT:
If you are used to good, quality, full featured boards, this one is not for you.
It has to be the cheapest, skimpiest board I've ever seen.
The only reason to get one of these is if you don't have, or don't plan on getting, DDR ram.
If you have DDR, or will get some, then much, much better boards are available for about $10 to $20 more.

Could you enlighten me on why this is no good for the DDR memory. I have one with 512mb of Mushkin. What don't I know?

 

[GermyBoy]

Originally posted by: atgep
I love the K7s5a. I built a new system around this Mobo and have been completely satisfied. I have read that the mobo can be troublesome if you have older equipment. If you are putting together a new system It is the best value for the $$'s. Where else can you get a great board for the price of a sound card. LOL good luck.

As do I. It's a great value board. A buddy I work with picked one up because his dual p3-733s were eaten by his power supply, as well as his agp card, his harddrive and his mobo.