KT 266a- vs. - SIS 735

[muffinman]

what are the advantages of one over the other?? also, whats the highest overclock on an athlon 1700xp or 1600 you have heard of?

 

[S0me1X]

Motherboards based on the SiS735 are usually cheaper (more likely than not, if you get a SiS735 board, you'd get the ECS K7S5a for ~$55), and they perform quite well.
I think the range of the performance of KT266a motherboards quite large, and is potentially the fastest Socket A board right now.

edit: changed from epox to ECS oops

 

[kindlr]

ECS, not Epox.

 

[kylef]

Theoretically, the Sis 735 should offer better bandwidth between its devices and system memory because of its multiplexed interconnection bus that supposedly has a throughput of something like 1 GB/s. Additionally, both the sound chip and the built-in NIC in the ECS K7S5a get independent channels to memory; in theory, this should prevent bus arbitration "hiccups" that have supposedly plagued Via chipsets in the past. That is not to say that the ECS board will be all-around faster, but it should prevent such a bottleneck from making audio skip when your NIC hogs the PCI bus for a long time.

Plus, saving money is nice!

 

[Bovinicus]

SiS735:
- The ECS K7S5A is priced very low at $55-$65.
- Faster communication between the north and south bridge than the KT266A. (The north and south bridge are in the same chip.)

KT266A:
- Wider variety of boards to choose from.
- Slightly faster (Not by any really significant amount).
- In general, seems to overclock better.

 

[AMDPwred]

You can also find great deals on the KT266A. I got my Shuttle AK31A for $80 from Newegg.com

 

[NFS4]

KT266A

More stable platform (don't even try to compare ECS to those mentioned at the end of this sentence), faster, USB 2.0, RAID, hardware audio, more overclocking options (higher bus speeds as well), much greater variety (MSI, Gigabyte, Asus, Abit, Shuttle, EpoX, etc.)

 

[Budman]

<< KT266A

More stable platform (don't even try to compare ECS to those mentioned at the end of this sentence), >>



I have to strongly dissagre with that statement.My ECS K7S5a has been very stable for me,much more than any via board i ever had.



Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong.

 

[NFS4]

<<

<< KT266A

More stable platform (don't even try to compare ECS to those mentioned at the end of this sentence), >>



I have to strongly dissagre with that statement.My ECS K7S5a has been very stable for me,much more than any via board i ever had.



Of course, that's just my opinion; I could be wrong. >>


Stable after you disabled ACPI.

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH

 

[Budman]

Yes i have to admit ACPI did the trick for me,But i dont need acpi anyways so no big loss.and i gained 1 irq.

 

[Pabster]

No ACPI disabled here.

1.4 T-Bird @ 1650, 1.79v
1.53 XP @ 1640, 1.73v

Both rock solid, 150/143 FSB, Ultra timings. On K7S5A's. ACPI enabled, thank you

Whine as you will, SiS 735 solutions (K7S5A in particular) offer the best bang for the buck right now. And don't even attempt to insinuate that KT266A offers any performance advantage -- except for a few points in benchies, there's zero real-world performance difference. And those features you mention NFS4 -- USB 2.0, RAID, et al -- they aren't features of the KT266A chipset. And I don't know about you, but neither USB 2.0 nor IDE RAID appeal to me in the slightest. Just a waste of money...

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

NFS4
i have a leadtek sis 735board. yes same price as a kt266a board but much more stable (atlast for me)

basically ecs has lots of problems ive heard. so when u say platform thats saying sis 735 it self? That in my opinion is stupid.

i can run prime95 and 3dmark 2001 for atleast 30hours (tested it)

and probably lots longer. never could do that with my epox 8kha+

also my kt266a gave me lots of BSOD with a geforce card (and some with ati card) havent had a single problem wtih this sis board

basically if u want speed go kt266a. if u want stability leadtek sis 735board. if u want overclocking. it dpeends. the leadtek board has a 1/5 and 1/6 divider.


personally motherboards need to be STABLE. so go with the leadtek sis 735board.

 

[JoPalm]

n00b question here. What's acpi..

 

[gogeeta13]

My LAN box is on a k7s5a. It runs flawless, I disabled ACPI from the get go because it is useless in the first place. It is fast, stable and cheap..

I have the shuttle ak31a on the way to me though, I wanted to try something new(for $80, you cant go wrong). The board should be here tommarow or wednesday, and maybe I will do a comparison between the following systems I have here:
sis735, sis635, kt133a, kt266a, kt133(not a).

I would say go witht he ecs, but the shuttle is also a nice board I hear

 

[Budman]

ACPI info.


http://www.acpi.info/index.html

 

[NFS4]

<< And those features you mention NFS4 -- USB 2.0, RAID, et al -- they aren't features of the KT266A chipset. And I don't know about you, but neither USB 2.0 nor IDE RAID appeal to me in the slightest. Just a waste of money... >>


Well, of course they aren't but there aren't even an OPTION on SiS735 boards. I'd like to have the choice. USB 2.0 DOES appeal to me (and I do have a USB 2.0 controller).

 

[zzzz]

wait for sis 745 board from Abit.

 

[Mats]

Who needs ACPI anyway...

 

[Mltsao]

I agree with Pabster -

I have two ECS K7S5A boards and they are very stable without ACPI being disabled.

Never have they crashed and as u can see in my rigs i oced my duron 650 to 900 and my tb 1ghz to 1.4 ghz both 1.85v .

 

[Jiggz]

I have an ECS K7S5A with a 1.2Ghz and probably the best board I've had. I knew from the title of this thread there will be flare ups with the ECS mobo. But the fact of the matter, just like any board there are those boards which fall between the cracks and of course operators who are on cracks! Although there may be a lot of post about ECS problems, if you count the number of people posting it's actually less than what is perceived. The board is fine and if you bought one and start to experience problems, the first thing to do is RMA it just like any other board. Some people hated the ECS because they tried to fix a broken board and failed. Because it hurt their ego so they think everybody else should.

 

[fow99]

One of my friend has a ECS and he is complaining about the inability of overclocking. Is it true?

 

[rip22]

I helped my buddy build a ECS K7S5A based system (T-bird 1400). He has been running it now for more then a month without a singel issue. Its stable, fast and dirt cheap what else can you ask for?

I would recommend ECS K7S5A any day.

 

[nortexoid]

didn't have to disable ACPI here either...

works great under all OS's i've tried - win9x, win2k, and winxp

for the price, there certainly is no better board than the k7s5a....but if u want top performance, the kt266a + headaches is the only way to go (though the ali magik b0 iwill xp333 whomps it on the head in gaming benchmarks)

 

[ahfung]

I've got my PC-Chips M830LMR (same as K7S5A under different name) running very stable from day 1. It's on par with all the BX mobo I used beforce. No issue with ACPI and it runs Win2000 for days without a single crash. The only complaint is lack of any overclocking feature except SoftFSB (which is a merit as well, I have more time on gaming instead of looping 3D Marks).

 

[RSMemphis]

<< One of my friend has a ECS and he is complaining about the inability of overclocking. Is it true? >>



Yeah, pretty much. Although there is an inofficial BIOS that allows adjusting the FSB and the multiplier...

I wouldn't count on stability then, though.

I run my ECS board pretty much as is, ACPI enabled and everything. Apparently it works better with the XP than the Thunderbird, at least that's what NFS4 told me.

I am happy.