KT133A Chipset Question

[Draco]

I think I'm going to wait for MSI's K7T-Turbo board, but I want to use my existing PC133 RAM. Does anyone know for sure whether or not my PC133 ram will still work ok on the new KT133A Chipset? Or will it require the new DDR memory ?

 

[kylebisme]

the KT133A chipset does not use ddr ram at all.

 

[Draco]

Well... uh *duh* Thanks

 

[mangust]

Your RAM will work just fine. The KT133A adds support for the 266 Mhz CPU fsb, other than that it is pretty much like the regulat KT133.
Draco is correct, KT133A does not support DDR memory.

 

[heng1028]

kt133a supports 133 how about kt133??

what does it support??

 

[GT1999]

Draco! Are you the admin of Stoogeville (along with your brother Zool?) If so whaassappp! I'll see you at the BadAss Lan Party?

If you want a motherboard sometime soon go for the K7T Pro2-A or the Turbo. There's a new bios available (2.01) that offers support for 133MHz (266 FSB) Thunderbirds for the Pro2-A, which effectively makes it a KT133*A* motherboard. I picked up a 100 [200 FSB] 1.1 T-Bird but if you decide to upgrade from, say, a Duron 750, then you could do so to a 266 FSB T-Bird. The Pro2-A (as well as Turbo) use PC100/133 SDRAM memory and use the VIA KT133[A] chipset. If you decide to go for the Pro2, make sure you get one with the "A" at the end, which has the newer via southbridge with the letter B at the end which denotes UDMA/100 support instead of 66.

Good to see you on the forums, I love Stooge! By the way, why are you guys running build 1500?


G|T (Counterstrike alias: vertigo/tlarmon)

 

[Amaretto747]

Geekishthought,
So what you're saying is all I need to do is upgrade my bios to 2.1 and I can get a new athlon that does 133fsb and that's it? are you sure about this? thanks

 

[Peter]

Sorry, no. The new BIOS just adds support for the 133A chip. The old one will still be unable to do 133 MHz CPU FSB.

Regards, Peter

 

[Amaretto747]

bummer

 

[Nelmster]

Dasm! I have to apologize first, because I STILL don't understand this... Concerning the 2.01 BIOS and the "change from KT133->KT133A"

From Peter (above) Sorry, no. The new BIOS just adds support for the 133A chip. The old one will still be unable to do 133 MHz CPU FSB.

I just don't understand, so I guess I'm going to have to ask someone to spell this out completely for me. Does it mean that if you could change the chipset on the Pro2A mobo that it would work? If this previous question is true, how hard is it to do change the chipset, and is it cost-effective?

 

[DaddyG]

Its not cost effective to change the chipset. The chip set is pin compatible with the older KT133 but its possible that trace lengths were shortenend to allow for the 133FSB. Chipset cost is about $40 in 1,000 lot. Not sure if you could even but single lot. Then the cost of remove/install would be at least $60, very labor intensive. Having done all this, the mobo would likely not work !!

 

[Nelmster]

DaddyG,

Thank you for the answer. Do you know the answer to the original question? Why does the BIOS mention that there is a change from KT133->KT133A? What is the purpose? How does that help us?

 

[broadwayblue]

not that it's that big a deal (since the turbo isn't even out yet) but when will the Athlon 266mhz fsb processors be available? Seems like they should be out at about the same time as the 133a mb's.

 

[Noriaki]

Nelmster:

Flashing the K7TPro2A to 2.01 allows it to recognize the 133Mhz FSB CPUs. Like if you stick it in the socket the mobo will know what it is But it will only run at 100(200)Mhz FSB.

You will need the new KT133A board to run the FSB at 133(266)Mhz.

The 133 in KT133 (nonA) denoted that it supports 133Mhz RAM, not 133Mhz FSB.

 

[Nelmster]

Noriaki,

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It doesn't get more simple than that, and that's what I needed. Thanks, again!

 

[Cvitur1]

So does the KT133A support asynchronous memory bus? I have measley pc100 ram , so could I use that w/ a 133Mhz FSB? thnx

 

[Pluto]

Cvitur1, good question. My guess would be "probably". Since KT133 can run asynchronous to begin with (100mhz FSB, 133mhz RAM) it would only make sense.

 

[rmarango]

Go for mainboards supporting FSB at 266 Mhz AND both memory types (SDR and DDR), it's the most flexible solution right now

 

[broadwayblue]

review of soltek 133a mb.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/solteksl75kavx/index.html

 

[fergus]

I have a Tbird 900 with a 200mhz fsb but I will be buying the MSI Turbo or the new Epox 8KTA3 (it's 133A). Will the Tbird, being 200fsb, limit the board to 100 mhz and not utilize the 133?? If so, then I'm trading up for a 266fsb Tbird. I'm in the process of buying pieces for a new system and got the cpu before knowing about the KT133A chipset.

 

[mikef208]

<< Go for mainboards supporting FSB at 266 Mhz AND both memory types (SDR and DDR), it's the most flexible solution right now >>



This is the second time I have seen this exact same post. What motherboards support both types of RAM. I may be wrong(please correct me and call me mean names if I am), but I don't think there are any boards that support both SDR and DDR memory.

Also I saw someone ask if the 200mhz FSB athlons would limit the FSB of the whole system, I don't think that it will, I saw a preview of the EPOX kt133a board, in which they overclocked a Duron using a FSB of 155mhz. I may very well be incorrect on this, I am only stating what I read on the web. And I can safely say I do not believe everything i read, but this I think is true.

 

[rmarango]

These are some mainboards that supports both SDR and DDR and 266 Mhz:

Arima
KUAIA
ALi MAGiK 1
ATX


Chaintech
A7A266
ALi MAGiK 1
ATX


PC Chips
M816
ALi MAGiK 1
micro ATX


Go to http://www.socketa.com/cgi-bin/search_form.pl for more...

 

[etech]

rmarango, I don't think that is the best way to go at this time.

The ALi MAGiK 1 chipset does not seem as good as the Via KT133A at this time going by the reviews I have seen.
I have never heard of Arima and what I have heard of PC Chips boards I would not recomend them. Chaintech has had some good boards out before.

I would think that a good KT133A board would be better,cheaper and more stable then mixing memory slot types on one board.

Spend the extra money on a high quality SDRAM and overclock the heck out of it. You will get very close to the same performance as the early DDRAM and will be able to wait for cheaper DDRAM and motherboards to hit the market.

 

[rmarango]

What's wrong with AliMagik 1 ??
Please read this review from AMD zone :
http://www.socketa.com/reviews/chipsets/ali/magik1/

Here is an abstract :
&quot;After quite a bit of work I have posted my review of the ALi MAGiK 1 chipset and the Iwill KA266R. I must say that ALi and Iwill are doing an excellent job. This may be the DDR solution you are looking for. Anyway, I compare to the VIA KT133 and AMD 760 with benchmarks of Cachemem, Sandra Memory, Sysmark2000, Winstone99, Quake Arena, 3DMark2000, SuperPi, Seti@Home, RC5/OGR, QMC Lattice, Linpack, and SPECviewperf. The speed tested at is 1.2GHz with 256MB of PC2100 DDR SDRAM and Windows 98 is the OS. Next up will the the FIC AD11 with the AMD 760 chipset.&quot;

 

[rmarango]

Here is another enthusiastic review from ClubOverclocker Club Overclocker review

Follows an abstract:
Rating The Iwill KA266-R, even as a beta test sample, yields the highest memory benchmarks we've seen on any AMD system. Unbelievable! The break-neck speed of the Thunderbird 1GHz CPU running on 133MHz bus takes us to the next level of performance. I have never seen performance results like this before here at ClubOC. The CPU we have should be able to overclock easily to 1200 or even 1300MHz+. With this on my mind, I can not wait to see the KA266-R Revision C which will be the release version with the highly anticipated voltage tweaking capability. Even without being able to boost voltage, we are still able to overclock to 1100MHz at 100MHz bus. This tells me this ALi chipset is rock stable possibly making the Iwill KA266-R the best motherboard of 2000. In fact, after talking it over with other members of ClubOC, we are prepared to name the Iwill KA266-R, Club Overclocker's Motherboard Of The Year!