Fry's Motherboard Combos

[easy2kill]

Sorry if this is a repost. I did a search and did NOT find a previous posting, so here goes:

I went to the Sunnyvale, CA Fry's today to buy the following combo:

1. +2200 Sempron (bare) with ECS Motherboard (K7VTA3): $49.99

I noticed they had another combo that I did not see advertised anywhere in the newspapers:

2. +2500 Sempron (RETAIL) with SOYO SY-KT600 Dragon Plus v2.0: $109.99 - $40.00 (REBATE)

I ended up buying the SOYO combo instead. With tax and rebates, this combo comes in around $80.00. Not bad, since the CPU is retail (comes with HSF and 3 year warranty). The rebates says this offer is valid from 11/12 - 11/18 and must be postmarked by 11/30. Here are some quick specs on the SOYO:

Supported CPU: Socket A AMD AthlonXP/Athlon/Duron Processors
Chipset: KT600 + VT8237
FSB: 400/333/266MHz
RAM: 2x DIMM support DDR400/333/266 Max 2GB
Slots: 1x AGP 8X, 5x PCI, 1x CNR
Ports: 2x PS/2, 1x COM, 1x LPT, 8x USB2.0(Rear 4), 1xRJ45, Audio Ports
IDE: 2x ATA 133 up to 4 Devices
SATA/RAID: 2x Serial ATA with RAID 0, 1 function
Onboard Audio: 6-channel audio
Onboard LAN: 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet
Form Factor: ATX

 

[mannydx]

i'll keep your soyo rebate in my prayers, let's hope you get it back

 

[ECHO]

seems like a pretty good deal if the rebate happens. Will this cpu do ok playing games such as Half Life2, Doom3, etc.?

 

[Jaxidian]

Originally posted by: ECHO
seems like a pretty good deal if the rebate happens. Will this cpu do ok playing games such as Half Life2, Doom3, etc.?

If you got 512MB (preferably 1GB) of RAM and a good video card, it will be just fine.

 

[0roo0roo]

yup, and those cost more then the combos as for the pr ratings of the sempron, think -400mhz for the equivalent xp tbred speed.

 

[esquared]

I noticed they had another combo that I did not see advertised anywhere in the newspapers:

2. +2500 Sempron (RETAIL) with SOYO SY-KT600 Dragon Plus v2.0: $109.99 - $40.00 (REBATE)

I ended up buying the SOYO combo instead. With tax and rebates, this combo comes in around $80.00. Not bad, since the CPU is retail (comes with HSF and 3 year warranty). The rebates says this offer is valid from 11/12 - 11/18 and must be postmarked by 11/30. Here are some quick specs on the SOYO:

Why didn't you just get the Boxed Sempron 2500+ (Retail also) with the ECS K7VTA3 board for 74.99 and not mess around with a rebate, especially the infamous Soyo rebates???

 

[golemite]

just wanted to say that my friends have gotten two of the combos w/ the ECS and that mobo is extremely crappy... wont post on a 9600pro or a 9550, but works ok on a geforce2??

 

[epileptic]

the combos seem to be going up in price. i paid 59.99 for a retail 2500+ with k7vta3 a month ago now its 74.99, and 2 months ago i picked up the retail prescott 2.4a with 848P-A for 109.99 and yesterdays ad listed the same combo for 124.99, what gives?

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: golemite
just wanted to say that my friends have gotten two of the combos w/ the ECS and that mobo is extremely crappy... wont post on a 9600pro or a 9550, but works ok on a geforce2??

I had issues with the K7VTA3 and a FX 5200, but it worked fine with a GeForce 2 MX and MX 420. The mobo seems really picky about 8X AGP cards (which are generally supposed to work fine at 4X speeds on a 4X board like the ECS). One guy over the video forum had issues with a third party Radeon 9800, but a BBA 9800 worked perfectly fine.

When I got the retail Sempron 2500+/ECS combo a month or so ago, it was only $59.99. Why does it keep getting more expensive?

 

[epileptic]

Originally posted by: batmanuel

Originally posted by: golemite
just wanted to say that my friends have gotten two of the combos w/ the ECS and that mobo is extremely crappy... wont post on a 9600pro or a 9550, but works ok on a geforce2??

I had issues with the K7VTA3 and a FX 5200, but it worked fine with a GeForce 2 MX and MX 420. The mobo seems really picky about 8X AGP cards (which are generally supposed to work fine at 4X speeds on a 4X board like the ECS). One guy over the video forum had issues with a third party Radeon 9800, but a BBA 9800 worked perfectly fine.

When I got the retail Sempron 2500+/ECS combo a month or so ago, it was only $59.99. Why does it keep getting more expensive?

hah. we got the same combo and had similiar issues. my k7vta3 wouldnt work with the 9600pro I had but worked fine with an 8500LE .... i duno who to blame for that ecs or via? i say that because my 848P works with the same 9600pro...

edit: so far ive only had 2 ecs boards and besides that one compatibilty issue theyve been good to me...id buy another ecs combo any day because even if the board dies in 2 weeks it was free so who cares.

 

[batmanuel]

Actually, besides the AGP issue, the ECS board was rock solid stable. After I burnt it in with Prime, I left it crunching SETI workunits for a week with no crashes or lockups.

 

[Praxis]

Add me to the ranks of those that never got their Soyo rebates, and that was through Mwave, not Fry's, which has far and away the worst rebate fulfillment rate of any big box store in the business, IMHO. My subjective guess is that you have at the most a 20% chance of every seeing this money, so if I were going to buy this combo I'd access the price as about $100 rather than $70. Still, the Dragon is supposed to be a nice board, so it might be worth it.

Why didn't you just get the Boxed Sempron 2500+ (Retail also) with the ECS K7VTA3 board for 74.99 and not mess around with a rebate, especially the infamous Soyo rebates???

Hmmmm, richtig? The combo that is advertised is a retail Sempr0n 2400+ with a S-ATA motherboard for $75.

A bit more expensive than most of the boxed Sempron deals in its class before, but as far as I know the first time Fry's has offered the S-ATA board with its cheap Sempron combo. It should come down $5-15 within a month or three.

When I went to the Fremont arbeit macht Fry's last week and inquired about what they had for Sempron combos I was told that there were only returned motherboards, but I noticed 2 new pallets of ECS VIA KT600 chipset boards, so I figured that soon all the cheap combos would be packaged with that slab (rather then the older, rather long in the tooth KT333 K7VTA3 (8.0) that they'd be using since they finally gave up on the ECS SiS 735 chipset K7S5A a year or two ago).

So the new board is apparently the KT600-A V1.0, unless anyone knows different. It supports 400 MHz FSB (2x200), rather than 333 FSB for the KT333 (2x166). That should give a bit of overhead for folks trying to overclock the multiplier-locked Sempron by raising the FSB.

I've only found one review of the board, which wasn't real detailed, but I gather that with S-ATA (integrated in to the southbridge chipset), the KT600 can hold its own against the Nvidia2 boards (even though it doesn't have dual channel memory). The guy has 3 RAM slots, unlike the V.8.0 which had 2 slots. Here are some details:

Special Features

FSB 400
DDR 400
AGP 8X
Serial ATA
USB 2.0
6 Channel Audio

Processor
Socket 462 for AMD K7 Athlon XP/ Athlon/ Duron processor
FSB 400/333/266 MHz

Chipset
North Bridge: VIA KT600
South Bridge: VIA VT8237

LAN
VIA VT6103 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet PHY

Storage
Support by VIA VT8237
4 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices
2 x Serial ATA devices
RAID0 & RAID1 configuration

Expansion Slots
1 x AGP 8X/4X slot
4 PCI
1 CNR slot

Form Factors
ATX Form Factor, 305*190mm

Memory
3 x 184-pin DDR DIMM socket support up to 3GB ( DDR400 up to 2GB )
Support DDR400/333/266 MHz 2.5V DDR SDRAM

Audio
Realtek ALC655 6-Channel audio CODEC
Compliant with AC'97 2.3 specification

Back Panel I/O Ports
1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors
4 x USB ports
1 x RJ45 LAN connector
1 x Parallel port (LPT1)
2 x Serial ports (COM1 & COM2)
1 x Audio ports (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in)

Internal I/O Connectors & Header
1 x 20-pin ATX Power Supply Connector
1 x Floppy connector supports 360K~2.88M Bytes, 3 Mode FDDs or LS120
2 x IDE connectors
2 x Serial ATA connectors
1 x Speaker header
2 x USB 2.0 header support additional 4 USB Ports
1 x SPDIF out header
1 x Front panel switch/LED header
1 x Front panel audio header
CD in/ AUX in headers
CPUFAN/NB_FAN/CASFAN connectors

BIOS
Award 2Mb Flash EEPROM
Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Muli Boot, DMI
Full Support for ACPI revision 1.0 specification

S-ATA is finally coming down in price to competitive levels. Last week Fry's hawked a 160 GB S-ATA drive for I believe $70 after $30 MIR. I doubt the performance advantage is much to write home about, but since this board comes with built in RAID, you could set up a mirrored array for an extra, say $100 over the cost of having just one 160 GB IDE drive, so if one drives dies you won't have to reinstall or lose data. That would be cheap insurance for me. I don't suppose you can make a mirrored set with 1 IDE drive and a S-ATA drive.

Does anyone know anything about the Realtek ALC655 6-Channel audio CODEC? I gather that the board comes with an SPDIF out header, which, if true, would be great, allowing high quality sound to be sent directly to a receiver, I gather.

I hope these boards don't have the teething problems that a lot of ECS products have, though they are pretty late to market with this chipset, so I'm guessing it is a somewhat more mature product than, say, the K7S5A was when released.

These boards are dirt-cheap on the market. I found one for $41 delivered, or $45 delivered at Newegg. But the 'Egg wants $43 for the cheapest OEM Sempron 2200+, & the cheapest boxed Sempron 2400+ Pricewatches for about $60, so as usual, these low end Fry's combos are great values.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: Praxis

Why didn't you just get the Boxed Sempron 2500+ (Retail also) with the ECS K7VTA3 board for 74.99 and not mess around with a rebate, especially the infamous Soyo rebates???

Hmmmm, richtig? The combo that is advertised is a retail Sempr0n 2400+ with a S-ATA motherboard for $75.

A bit more expensive than most of the boxed Sempron deals in its class before, but as far as I know the first time Fry's has offered the S-ATA board with its cheap Sempron combo. It should come down $5-15 within a month or three.

When I went to the Fremont arbeit macht Fry's last week and inquired about what they had for Sempron combos I was told that there were only returned motherboards, but I noticed 2 new pallets of ECS VIA KT600 chipset boards, so I figured that soon all the cheap combos would be packaged with that slab (rather then the older, rather long in the tooth KT333 K7VTA3 (8.0) that they'd be using since they finally gave up on the ECS SiS 735 chipset K7S5A a year or two ago).

So the new board is apparently the KT600-A V1.0, unless anyone knows different. It supports 400 MHz FSB (2x200), rather than 333 FSB for the KT333 (2x166). That should give a bit of overhead for folks trying to overclock the multiplier-locked Sempron by raising the FSB.

I've only found one review of the board, which wasn't real detailed, but I gather that with S-ATA (integrated in to the southbridge chipset), the KT600 can hold its own against the Nvidia2 boards (even though it doesn't have dual channel memory). The guy has 3 RAM slots, unlike the V.8.0 which had 2 slots. Here are some details:

S-ATA is finally coming down in price to competitive levels. Last week Fry's hawked a 160 GB S-ATA drive for I believe $80 after MIR. I doubt the performance advantage is much to write home about, but since this board comes with built in RAID, you could set up a mirrored array for an extra, say $100 over the cost of having just one 160 GB IDE drive, so if one drives dies you won't have to reinstall or lose data. That would be cheap insurance for me. I don't suppose you can make a mirrored set with 1 IDE drive and a S-ATA drive.

Special Features

FSB 400
DDR 400
AGP 8X
Serial ATA
USB 2.0
6 Channel Audio

Processor
Socket 462 for AMD K7 Athlon XP/ Athlon/ Duron processor
FSB 400/333/266 MHz

Chipset
North Bridge: VIA KT600
South Bridge: VIA VT8237

LAN
VIA VT6103 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet PHY

Storage
Support by VIA VT8237
4 x Ultra DMA133/100/66 devices
2 x Serial ATA devices
RAID0 & RAID1 configuration

Expansion Slots
1 x AGP 8X/4X slot
4 PCI
1 CNR slot

Form Factors
ATX Form Factor, 305*190mm

Memory
3 x 184-pin DDR DIMM socket support up to 3GB ( DDR400 up to 2GB )
Support DDR400/333/266 MHz 2.5V DDR SDRAM

Audio
Realtek ALC655 6-Channel audio CODEC
Compliant with AC'97 2.3 specification

Back Panel I/O Ports
1 x PS/2 keyboard & PS/2 mouse connectors
4 x USB ports
1 x RJ45 LAN connector
1 x Parallel port (LPT1)
2 x Serial ports (COM1 & COM2)
1 x Audio ports (Line-in, Line-out, Mic-in)

Internal I/O Connectors & Header
1 x 20-pin ATX Power Supply Connector
1 x Floppy connector supports 360K~2.88M Bytes, 3 Mode FDDs or LS120
2 x IDE connectors
2 x Serial ATA connectors
1 x Speaker header
2 x USB 2.0 header support additional 4 USB Ports
1 x SPDIF out header
1 x Front panel switch/LED header
1 x Front panel audio header
CD in/ AUX in headers
CPUFAN/NB_FAN/CASFAN connectors

BIOS
Award 2Mb Flash EEPROM
Supports Plug and Play 1.0A, APM 1.2, Muli Boot, DMI
Full Support for ACPI revision 1.0 specification

Does anyone know anything about the Realtek ALC655 6-Channel audio CODEC? I gather that the board comes with an SPDIF out header, which, if true, would be great, allowing high quality sound to be sent directly to a receiver, I gather.

I hope these boards don't have the teething problems that a lot of ECS products have, though they are pretty late to market with this chipset, so I'm guessing it is a somewhat more mature product than, say, the K7S5A was when released.

These things are dirt-cheap on the market. I found one for $41 delivered, or $45 delivered at Newegg. But the 'Egg wants $43 for the cheapest OEM Sempron 2200+, & the cheapest boxed Sempron 2400+ Pricewatches for about $60, so as usual, these low end Fry's combos are great values.

nice post. also here to confirm that:

11/17/04 AMD combo of Sempron 2400+ Boxed + ECS KT600-A (with SATA) for $75

if you're gonna get a SATA hdd, make sure its a Seagate (for 5 year) or, at least get a SATA w/ NCQ

 

[batmanuel]

That explains why the combo prices have gone up a bit, the upgrade to the KT600 from the KT333. I was wondering why the sudden price hike happened. Since the KT600 supports AGP 8X fully, it should hopefully be free of the video card gremlins I mentioned above, which makes the Sempron combos much hotter now.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: batmanuel
That explains why the combo prices have gone up a bit, the upgrade to the KT600 from the KT333. I was wondering why the sudden price hike happened. Since the KT600 supports AGP 8X fully, it should hopefully be free of the video card gremlins I mentioned above, which makes the Sempron combos much hotter now.

they're bouncing back and forth, they'll start using the k7vta3 again...

 

[esquared]

Originally posted by: batmanuel
That explains why the combo prices have gone up a bit, the upgrade to the KT600 from the KT333. I was wondering why the sudden price hike happened. Since the KT600 supports AGP 8X fully, it should hopefully be free of the video card gremlins I mentioned above, which makes the Sempron combos much hotter now.

The prices haven't gone up because of a motherboard upgrade. They've gone up because of the processor prices have gone up. That upgrade on the ECS motherboard just happened today, but the CPU went from a 2500+ to a 2400+. Yesterday you had the 2500+ Sempron boxed with K7VTA3 for 74.99. Today it's the KT-600 and a Sempron 2400+ boxed for the same price. So you're losing a little processor speed for a little newer motherboard.

I've bought at least a dozen Sempron/ECS combos in the last six weeks, all of them with the K7VTA3 ver 6.0 board. During the grand reopening of the Campbell store in the middle of October they were selling the boxed Sempron 2400+ with the VTA3 board for 49.99. The next week I got a Sempron 2500+ boxed with VTA3 board for 59.99. Last weekend, I bought two boxed 2500+ Semprons for 74.99. That's a 15.00 increase completely due to the processor.

Three weeks ago I also bought four boxed Sempron 2800+ K7VTA3 combos for 89.00 on sale. A week later the same combo was on sale again only it was now 99.99. Same board, same processor, higher price. In July I built a computer with boxed 2500+ Barton and the ECS N2U400 board for 59.99. That was a deal. There's been nothing close to that deal for a few months.

 

[Praxis]

Yah, that Nvidia/Barton offer was the all-time best Fry's combo deal. I assumed that if you see a price at Fry's that you'll see it again soon, but it never reappeared, and now Bartons are getting scarcer.

I noticed a significant combo price jump when the Sempron basically replaced the Athlon XP/Durons in the low end Fry's deals. Sempron prices per 1000 were relatively high when the product was introduced and all the review sites said it was a bad deal, because you could still buy a better performing Athlon XP for less. Now the XPs are working their way out of the system, so until wholesale prices of Semprons go down you can expect relatively expensive combos. Actually, a few weeks ago Fry's did sell the Sempron 2200+ with a K7VTA3v8 for $40, which was a good deal. I bought one and wish I'd picked up two.

AMD is finally making a little profit after years in the red, being ground under heel by Intel. Intel had such overwhelming brand recognition and customer loyalty that they forced AMD to sell at a loss for years, particularly after the P4 eclipsed the Athlon as the fastest desktop CPU. However that made AMD a great deal vis-a-vis Intel and most geeks and hardware heads went AMD (I warrant most of you are reading this with AMD powered machines, even though Intel still dominates the market). Eventually AMD built substantial brand loyalty in that sector of the market. Plus, they were getting recognition for the A64 line which beats the P4s at a lot of the tasks that folks do most of the time (office apps, browsing, compiling if you are a Linux user). So now we are in a situation where Intel was forced to lower its processor prices to compete in that sector and now I think Intel holds its own for value at the high end, and with the Celery Cs, even at the mid-range. But I've gotten so used to using AMD I barely even notice the Intel Fry's combos ads.

 

[AkumaX]

Originally posted by: Praxis
Yah, that Nvidia/Barton offer was the all-time best Fry's combo deal. I assumed that if you see a price at Fry's that you'll see it again soon, but it never reappeared, and now Bartons are getting scarcer.

I noticed a significant combo price jump when the Sempron basically replaced the Athlon XP/Durons in the low end Fry's deals. Sempron prices per 1000 were relatively high when the product was introduced and all the review sites said it was a bad deal, because you could still buy a better performing Athlon XP for less. Now the XPs are working their way out of the system, so until wholesale prices of Semprons go down you can expect relatively expensive combos. Actually, a few weeks ago Fry's did sell the Sempron 2200+ with a K7VTA3v8 for $40, which was a good deal. I bought one and wish I'd picked up two.

AMD is finally making a little profit after years in the red, being ground under heel by Intel. Intel had such overwhelming brand recognition and customer loyalty that they forced AMD to sell at a loss for years, particularly after the P4 eclipsed the Athlon as the fastest desktop CPU. However that made AMD a great deal vis-a-vis Intel and most geeks and hardware heads went AMD (I warrant most of you are reading this with AMD powered machines, even though Intel still dominates the market). Eventually AMD built substantial brand loyalty in that sector of the market. Plus, they were getting recognition for the A64 line which beats the P4s at a lot of the tasks that folks do most of the time (office apps, browsing, compiling if you are a Linux user). So now we are in a situation where Intel was forced to lower its processor prices to compete in that sector and now I think Intel holds its own for value at the high end, and with the Celery Cs, even at the mid-range. But I've gotten so used to using AMD I barely even notice the Intel Fry's combos ads.

cheep barton combo best

that's right, the sempron cpus are more expensive in units of 1000

the 2200 combo for 40 was bare cpu wasnt it? well, then again bay area fries has better deals than socal

i havent looked at intel combos for years

 

[imported_earthslash]

I know someone who encountered the same problem golemite... 9600 pro wouldn't even display and GeForce 2 card worked fine with the ecs mobo and sempron processor. Very strange... I think this mobo from ecs is definitely not their finest work and to be avoided if possible.

 

[bamx2]

I suspect they are testing the water to see waht the market will bear . The combos with the ECS motherboard are jsut too iffy ( 50/50 chance you get a bad motherbard ) . I wouldn't be surpiced if they but the ECS motherboardss in bulk or gray market for $ 5-15 w/no t3sting or warranty .

 

[Praxis]

I can't believe I'm defending ECS (which is the elite division of PCCHIPS, which is AFAIK the worst slab-maker there is), but I've built more than a dozen computers using the K7S5A, the KT7VA3 & the N2U400-A (which I'm typing on now), and while they've had a few issues occasionally, I can't in all honesty say that they've been that much worse than any other maker with which I've dealt.

Epox, beloved of overclockers, gave me a board that killed two processors before I RMA'd it (you'd think I'd have given up after the first), and about a month ago a board just went nipples up on me for no apparent reason while I was surfing the net (no it wasn't the CPU, PS, RAM, HD, or cards, I swapped them all out). I've built another half dozen or so Epox systems that worked fine for the most part, but even some of them had so me funkiness (not liking certain cards, one that wouldn't work with its USB headers plugged in).

I've had serious issues with a couple of Asus boards (including one which burst in to flame at the southbridge chipset). I've had other Asus mobos perform like champs, including my trusty A7V, the brother to the one that self combusted.

On the whole the problems I've had with ECS boards have been fairly minor (dead CMOS batteries, funky sound on a K7S5A). Though I prefer not to buy ECS, that is primarily because I have had such dismal experiences with the products of its parent company, which has done some really unethical things (like selling boards with phony cache chips, back when mobos had cache memory).

 

[Samus]

ECS makes pretty solid boards now, they have since the K7S5A, probably the most groundbreaking product ever to come from the company.

They dont make super overclockers (they have absolutely no tweak options, and the clock generators make it tough for ever a hacked tweakers bios to add anything worthy of writing home about)

but...

they're solid none-the-less.

 

[esquared]

The combos with the ECS motherboard are jsut too iffy ( 50/50 chance you get a bad motherbard ) . I wouldn't be surpiced if they but the ECS motherboardss in bulk or gray market for $ 5-15 w/no t3sting or warranty .

Why do people keep saying there's a 50/50 chance on getting a bad motherboard from ECS. If you don't have experience, don't comment. I have built at least 50 ECS/combo based computers in the last 2 1/2 years and I have got 2 bad motherboards (both were the L7S7A) that wouldn't boot. Exchanged them at Fry's for two more. ALL of my computer builds with ECS boards are still running. I myself have five computers with ECS boards, all running perfectly. I just wish rumors would stop about ECS having bad boards. As far as $5 gray market boards with no warranty. You need to quit making shlt up. Have you ever built a system with an ECS board???

I remember many years ago there was a rumor that Corona beer had urine in their beer. Sales temporarily dropped nearly 40% if I remember correctly, before the rumor was dispelled.

 

[DeweySS]

I have built countless combo systems with ECS (K7S5A Series) as well (stopped counting at 40) for end users who just want a decent PC at a good price. Of all the systems built, only 2 have gone bad. The only issue I see is stated by others which is the onboard sound, but does not bother most users as they are not lookig for the high quality 5.1 or better sound.

 

[bamx2]

Not making anything up . I have have 0 trouble from other brands I don't think Fry's is an authorized ECS distributor . I am glade you have had good experience with ECS boards . Based on my experience with the ECS boards from Fry's/Outpost I have to look at their CPu/Motherboard bundle deals with ECS motherborads as a gamble . t