KT133a board shootout (7 boards)

[chin]

7 x KT133A board shoout out found at http://www.ocworkbench.com/articles/kt133a/kt133ap1.htm

 

[bupkus]

If only they did a stability and compatibility shootout. I think we already knew they were similar in speed by way of bios revisions.

We still have two important no shows- MSI and ASUS.
Where's ASUS, and what the heck is up with MSI? Anybody really know?

 

[chin]

I heard that htere is a K7T Turbo. But don't know when is it coming ..

 

[gtd2000]

I was thinking about the Epox board.......maybe forget it now.....after seeing the performance vs the ABIT..

 

[chin]

Looks like EPOX is a copycat of ABIT KT7..everything looks so similar.

 

[chin]

Looks like MSI is very late this time. Hope they come out with something that is super!

 

[Citadel]

Kinda of a crappy showdown without MSI...

 

[Dulanic]

I own the Asus and it rocks

BTW the Asus is seen in Toms Review.



http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q1/010122/index.html

 

[Mustanggt]

The Abit KT7A is the fastest board out there it beats the MSI turbo Allready seen the benchmarks.

 

[SuperSix]

MSI is there because they actually TEST their product before dumping it on the market like Abit. MSI is the best AMD platform period, with Asus a close second. Don't get me started on Abit (A bit of quality, a lot of luck)

I love how people will buy one brand over another because of MINIMAL performance differences, (do you REALLY think you will notice that 2-5%?)
yet not worry about stability and reliability.

:|

 

[Dulanic]

Amen

In the KT133 round I would give MSI Pro2 the best board award. So far in KT133A it has to be A7V133.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Har har har!!

Let's run out and buy SDRAM and an SDRAM board when DDR SDRAM boards and memory cost the same.

Oh... and while were at it, let's buy an Abit because it's slightly faster and then watch to see if flames shoot out of the VRs.

Har har har!!!!

 

[Dulanic]

<< Har har har!!

Let's run out and buy SDRAM and an SDRAM board when DDR SDRAM boards and memory cost the same. >>



Har Har Har, keep your mouth shut until you know what you talking about.

Asus A7V133=$155
Asus A7M266=$200

PC133 CLS2 Crucial memory=$57
Lowest PC2100 still over $150

So same price? No... maybe in the future.

And maybe not all of us are rich and can afford to buy new memory and everything when I already own 256MB oc PC133 CLS2.

 

[jonnyGURU]

Know what I'm talking about??? Who pissed in your Mac and Cheese and talk about the pot calling the kettle black. :|

You know exactly what I'm talking about so don't even go there.

A Biostar M7MIA will run you $149 in the states. Less money than any Abit, and Asus for that matter, more stable AND FASTER.

Crucial PC1600 DDR is $67.99 in 128s and $118.79 in 256. THAT'S cheap and you know just as well as I do that even PC1600 is going to be faster than PC133 and some folks have even been sucessful at running their PC1600 with a 133/266 FSB on the board (not me, unfortunately).

Yes, it's true that PC2100 is expensive if even obtainable, but in general, PC1600 suits my needs affordably and with stability and with speed.

As far as avenues for my previous RAM, no I'm not rich and yes I now have a lot of DIMMs floating around now, but I have enough boxes around me to upgrade the RAM in and if not, I could sell it (obviously not for much seeing how cheap SDRAM is now).

You're correct in saying, &quot;Yes. If you have SDRAM you are best off just buying a faster board.&quot; but for the marginal performance gain, why bother?

All I'm saying really is IF you're going to buy RAM and a mobo, why bother with SDRAM when there's DDR SDRAM for the Athlon platform (and hell, for the PIII platform now!). Read what I said: &quot;Let's run out and buy SDRAM and an SDRAM board when DDR SDRAM boards and memory cost the same.&quot; Unless you split hairs, you know the statement is, for the most part, true.

 

[mofo888]

what a messed up shootout with msi or asus.
blah...sucky site

 

[Dulanic]

<< You know exactly what I'm talking about so don't even go there.

A Biostar M7MIA will run you $149 in the states. Less money than any Abit, and Asus for that matter, more stable AND FASTER. >>



Biostar.... when I see some solid stuff showing Biostar is stable and fast ill CONSIDER them, but Ive yet to see that happen.



<< Crucial PC1600 DDR is $67.99 in 128s and $118.79 in 256. THAT'S cheap and you know just as well as I do that even PC1600 is going to be faster than PC133 and some folks have even been sucessful at running their PC1600 with a 133/266 FSB on the board (not me, unfortunately). >>



Thats a bit questionable... and BTW a KT133A running at 266 will perform VERY VERY close and id bet in same cases out perform a AMD 760 at 200. So saying the price for PC1600 doesnt help much.



<< As far as avenues for my previous RAM, no I'm not rich and yes I now have a lot of DIMMs floating around now, but I have enough boxes around me to upgrade the RAM in and if not, I could sell it (obviously not for much seeing how cheap SDRAM is now).

You're correct in saying, &quot;Yes. If you have SDRAM you are best off just buying a faster board.&quot; but for the marginal performance gain, why bother? >>



Well I never said upgrade from a KT133 to KT133A... I did because I fried my A7V.



<< All I'm saying really is IF you're going to buy RAM and a mobo, why bother with SDRAM when there's DDR SDRAM for the Athlon platform (and hell, for the PIII platform now!). Read what I said: &quot;Let's run out and buy SDRAM and an SDRAM board when DDR SDRAM boards and memory cost the same.&quot; Unless you split hairs, you know the statement is, for the most part, true. >>



I see no reason to do so.... I see 2 options right now. Wait a month till you can get Crucial PC2100 and the boards are more available and better priced. Or buy a KT133A if your upgrading..... of corse if you own a KT133 there isnt much of a reason to upgrade.

 

[jonnyGURU]

True you did blow up your A7V, but my &quot;har har har&quot;s were not directed at you. At least you agree with the &quot;if you have a KT133, why bother with a KT133A upgrade&quot;.

I talk to people all day that buy one board, one CPU and one stick of RAM and then try to combine that with two sticks of SDRAM from their 233 MMX and a uATX power supply and then wonder why they have stability issues.

As far as Biostar being &quot;proven&quot; to you: I don't need them proven to me. We buy our Biostars direct from BMA in California and their RMA rate is just as low as MSI or Asus. The biggest problem with them is that their boards are often so inexpensive that you get incompetent morons using thier product to build PCs &quot;to save a buck&quot; and they usually f the board up. Then again, they usually fry their CPUs too. Does this mean that AMDs suck? Get my drift? Overall it has to be stated that 75% of what I get back from customers WORKS FINE and 75% of what I get back that is bad, was probably f'd up by the customer.

In the past, Biostar counted on OEM companies like Pionex, Quantex, etc for integration. Of course, now that Frontier is out of business, Biostar is out in the wind naked. They never gave freebie boards out to review sites in the past (which is a real stupid way to judge a board IMHO because the free boards they give to review sites are cherry picked and NOT actual shelf samples), but are now doing this in an attempt to get their name out. If you're basing your opinion on a lack of commercialized reviews, then you really don't know what you're talking about.

 

[megatexel]

how much of a real gain is there using DDR ram?

 

[jonnyGURU]

http://torturetest.com/reviews/jon/M7MIA.htm

All the same parts plotted against each other. Mind you that the RAM is &quot;only&quot; PC100 CAS2, but if you talk about using PC133 on a VIA KT133 board that runs the FSBs asynchronously, then you're only talking an average of 4-7% increase over the PC100. You can see this over at Tom's. At the time, PC1600 was all I could afford (but it was only $77).

The next part of that in going to be using the board to plot PC1600 vs. PC2100, but I haven't pulled the trigger on buying the PC2100.

 

[DaddyG]

I surely wouldn't replace a KT133 mobo with a KT133A unless the KT133 was unstable. But 133A mobos are overclocking extremely well, FSB's over 150. DDR memory doesn't float my boat, but everyone has their own opinions. I'm sure that OCWORKBENCH will add more mobos to their shootout as the get 'em.

I'd like to see a RAID shootout between Highpoint, Promise and the AMI on the IWILL KK266, any channce Jonny ??

 

[jonnyGURU]

I did a RAID shootout between the Promise and HPT370 on TT...

http://torturetest.com/reviews/jon/oct20.htm

Both were VERY close.

The onboard vs. PCI card vs. This board vs. That board benchmarks shouldn't differ since the controllers are still essentialy the same.

The M7MIA is supposed to have an optional HPT370, but I have had such a time with HPT370s losing drives on reboots, I think I'll leave it alone for a while.

 

[SoundBoy]

Jguru: Thanks for your input on this matter. I'm going to upgrade from dual PPros. Doesn't regular SDRAM have a lower latency? Also AFAIK, this BIOSTAR mb has only 2 dimm slots, and no multiplier options, either in bios or jumperable.

The EPOX has 6 pci plus ISA, raid 0. and 4 dimm slots.

I might hold out for a DDR mb, but I would want 6 slots, 3 DIMMS, FSB in 1 mhz increments, and variable multipliers. If you take a look at some memory bandwith benchmarks from sdram at 150 cas2 they seem pretty damm fast too, even compared with DDR.

PS: man, whats up with that enermax?

 

[jonnyGURU]

The two dimms slots is a limitation. The latency is the same though. 2-2-2 for PC1600 and even the PC2100 that Mushkin will have next month should be 2.5-2-2.

The lack of multipliers is a downside, although a lower speed Duron can work with the bus @ 133, unless you use a CPU with the &quot;C&quot; designation that is engineered to work at a 133 bus, the machine wont even POST with the FSB set to 133.

Yes, there are other boards, this one is available, affordable and stable and it has what I need.