KT400 or KT333

[iratecanadian]

I've cracked. I've decided that's it's finally time to upgrade my current system (Winston) to something a bit more current. I would like to stick with an AMD platform, just for personal preference. For those who don't want to bother looking at my system, I have a classic Athlon 700 with a Soyo K7AIA motherboard.

I was gone all summer working, and had no contact with computers. This means I'm a little out of the loop in terms of technology. I've read up some KT333 reviews, and the results vary. Some sites say the Asus A7V333 is the best of the bunch, others say that the Gigabyte board is. The problem is, all of the reviews are from early June! I had settled on the Asus A7V333 with an Athlon XP 2000+ after looking at my local computer store's price list (I worked there before this summer, so I feel somewhat obligated to buy from there) and the 2000+ seemed to be the best bang for the buck.

BUT, then I saw a few references to the KT400 chipset, and Asus' A7V8X board. Now I'm confused. There was another post asking what he should do, in something of the same situation but he wanted to buy NOW. I can wait a few weeks. Will it be worth it for me to wait until the Asus A7V8X comes out, and a few reviews are made? When I bought my current system, it was about a month before AMD went to Slot A - and I was somewhat dissapointed that I just invested some cash on a system that would be obsolete much quicker than I had anticipated. I don't want that to happen again.

So, my question is - should I wait and go with the Asus A7V8x (or whatever KT400 board seems to do the best job in the reviews) or should I forget it, and pick up the Asus A7V333 or the Gigabyte counterpart.

Thanks for any help!

 

[iratecanadian]

Hmm. Yeah, the votes are being split exactly as the reviews are. Doesn't make it easy to decide I've seen some threads about problems with the A7V333 - are they common, and if they are, are they serious?

 

[Sevenhunt]

Well, probs with the asus, no, it`s a great board.
But overall, the best board seems to be the EPOX 8K5A2+. Stability and the best oclock board. Further a very fast board. Sot if you decide to take a KT333 wager this one to.

KT333 or KT4000, as you said people differ.
The profit made by KT400 won`t be that big in the first months. A lot of beginner faults to say.
Reviews I`ve read indicate no immense profit with the KT400, just a bit faster here and there.

The KT333 is a very fast and done board, I mean, at the moment the best KT333 boards are really great, how long did it take them to get there, and how long will it take KT400 to become great.....

 

[Mem]

was gone all summer working, and had no contact with computers. This means I'm a little out of the loop in terms of technology. I've read up some KT333 reviews, and the results vary. Some sites say the Asus A7V333 is the best of the bunch, others say that the Gigabyte board is.

How did they miss the Epox 8K5A2+ or 8K5A2(non-RAID version) these are two of the best boards for stability and overclocking IMHO,I would rate Epox at the moment as NO.1 for stability and OC,as for KT400 or KT333 well the KT400 really only has AGP 8X so nothing much over the KT333 boards.

 

[Actaeon]

I've ordered an Epox 8K5A2 (non raid, no intergrated lan), and I'm waiting for it to come, reviews say its execeptional, and I believe it is the probally the best motherboard out now... Full of features (USB2.0, Intergrated Sound, Magic Flash, etc, the + version has Intergrated Lan and Raid), and great overclocking options (AGP/Mem/CPU and more voltages), it probally is the best KT333 board out. supposedly the KT333 also supports the newer AthlonXPs coming out soon, with support for the 166FSB.

AthlonXPs aren't effected by the RAM speeds as much as Intel, so all it really has is AGPX8 over the KT333 boards. Though faster memory doesn't hurt.

Bottom line is, waiting will obviously give you a faster chipset at the time, But if you wanna play the waiting game... go ahead, it'll be a couple months before KT400 is nearly as good as the KT333 boards today.

 

[dannybin1742]

yup ive got the 8k3a (precursor to the one you guys are talking about) my only complaint is that they don't offer 1/6 pci dividers, cause i know this b!tch can run 200fsb other than that its stable as f@@k

 

[iratecanadian]

Thanks for all the replies! It's given me something to think about now. From the look of it tho, maybe I should just go ahead and get the KT333 board. The epox or asus, I'll figure it out later.

MEM - all the board comparisons were done in June, maybe the Epox board wasn't out then?

Thanks again!

Cheers.

 

[Mem]

iratecanadian go
here for 8K5A2+ Review.

 

[yodayoda]

the KT400 is a misnomer... it should be called the KT333a chipset. it does not support DDR400, so why the hell is it called the KT400?! it has continued support of DDR333, support of 166MHz FSB athlon mobos, USB 2.0 and firewire on its southbridge, and 8x AGP. if you use any of those features, you should wait for the KT400. but if you are like the rest of us, who will purchase a 133MHz FSB athlon, use USB 1.1 devices, have no [apple and sony propogated] firewire, and will not buy a brand new ATI or SiS video card (nVidia has no 8x AGP vid card out), then the KT333 is fine.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: yodayoda
the KT400 is a misnomer... it should be called the KT333a chipset. it does not support DDR400, so why the hell is it called the KT400?! it has continued support of DDR333, support of 166MHz FSB athlon mobos, USB 2.0 and firewire on its southbridge, and 8x AGP. if you use any of those features, you should wait for the KT400. but if you are like the rest of us, who will purchase a 133MHz FSB athlon, use USB 1.1 devices, have no [apple and sony propogated] firewire, and will not buy a brand new ATI or SiS video card (nVidia has no 8x AGP vid card out), then the KT333 is fine.

The newest Southbridge, the 8235 only adds USB 2.0 support, not Firewire IIRC. Also, the 8235 is available on some of the newer KT333 boards..so the only thing the KT400 offers is AGP 8X.

 

[KLineD]

i have the soyo sy-kt400 on back order. Soyo boards may not be <THE> fastest, but they're up there, and the stability is unbeatable. Sure i'm paying $190 (well in reality i'm only paying around 140 but we wont go into that) for the platinum version...but it comes with a CF/SM reader, which is $20. Comes with lan, another $10...all things considered, adding the convenience of this thing, i think it's a bargain. It's not an asus or the likes that can be had for ~$100...but it will sure look purty in my new case.

 

[iratecanadian]

yodayoda - that's good to know. I'm using my old ati radeon 7500 with the board, so no need for 8x agp. I'll be buying an Athlon XP 2000+ or 2100+ so no need for the 166 fsb. Perfect, so it's looking more and more like I should just get the KT333 based board. Thanks.

KLineD - Ahhh... yes, Soyo. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't be considering this upgrade. I got the K7 AIA board 2 years ago - a slot A board. With any NT based windows OS, it reboots on most games. I've updated every driver, bios, and asked every deity I know of to fix the problem, but it persists. I'm not buying Soyo every again. They were no help to me at all. I thoguht it was my Matrox video card at first, and when I asked them for help they did everything but come over here and check it out themselves. They're great. The only reason I didn't buy Matrox for my new video card was that whatever they had when I bought wasn't as good as the ATI/nVidia cards available. That, and I wondered if it was a Matrox/Soyo incompatibility that was causing the reboots.

Anyways. Once again, I thank you for your suggestions! I think I'm pretty sure what I'm going to do. The Asus or Epox boards will be mine soon...

 

[serialb]

As the 166-bus XPs are on the horizon, anyone knows if the KT333 board will be compatible with them? Or it's just an exclusive luxury to the KT400? Thanks.

 

[Insane3D]

Originally posted by: serialb
As the 166-bus XPs are on the horizon, anyone knows if the KT333 board will be compatible with them? Or it's just an exclusive luxury to the KT400? Thanks.

Nope, most KT333 boards will support them fine..

 

[BarMan]

If you want an AGP Pro slot, integrated firewire and integrated usb2
go KT400, If not go KT333 and get extra cards.

 

[KF]

What you should worry about (and I don't know) is whether the mobo/chipset supports HDs > 127G barrier for the old IDE spec. (New retail drives now come with a special controller card.) I don't see it mentioned anywhere. In a year or two 127G will be entry level.

 

[pitupepito2000]

I agree with yodayoda, right now is best to go with a KT3 based boards, there's a good article in tomshardware that will give you more info on the performance of both types of boards. Right now the KT4 based boards are in an earlier stage and they don't offer full support for PC3200 ram. Here's a link.

The board that I would suggest for you is the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU here's a link, and here's a review, another review.

The majority of the reviews that you will find are from back in June, but that's because those boards were realased back then.

I hope this helps!

 

[Soulkeeper]

wonder if there will be a kt400a heh
tom's compared the kt400 while running ddr400 at cl2.5 against the kt333 running ddr333 at cl2.0 hardly what us extremists are concerned with
put in some cl2.0 ddr400 and see how the difference shifts
maybe not much (unless used with a 166fsb) but still a good setup
i just like the fact that a new chipset means a new wave of motherboards
which means new features and ideas
more boards with thermo-diode readings and the possibility that boards will have a better layout and stuff
that's why it excites me

 

[Soulkeeper]

you only hafta wait a few weeks for the kt400 boards to be everywhere
best to wait and see rather than kicking yurself for not waiting when you see something cool

 

[pcmax]

Originally posted by: BarMan
If you want an AGP Pro slot, integrated firewire and integrated usb2
go KT400, If not go KT333 and get extra cards.

Actually the Asus A7V333 has all this.

 

[Mk1980]

Hi people, I like to buy 166fsb Athlon when it will come out,, and also new harddisk, so I have read that kt400 boards have Serial ATA on them, and it is quite important, also question, will be serial ata disk even better then ATA133 ??? Is there need for me to wait on serial ata or not, thanks for your suggestion. Also I think that DDR400 could be setted to DDR333 in bios, and it will give you better results as ddr333, and in future 200fsb processors will use your memory and you don`t need to change badly, until you will splash your money to another faster DDR2, but no need, I think I will buy ddr400, set it into ddr333, better results in tests on kt400, and will have memory for future,ddr400 should help with clawhammer. I have only big question about that serial ata, wait for it , will it give me boost in using Windows XP applications, and games?? more speeady reading etc, I know it will have better cables ;-) .

 

[iratecanadian]

That's a good question - does the new Asus board support Serial ATA? Or, will any of the KT400 based board support Serial ATA. Hmmm, another thing to consider.

I've been feeling to shitty to go out and buy anything yet, so this is a very interesting question.

 

[iratecanadian]

Ahhh! The new Asus board does support Serial ATA - readhttp://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1696&p=1 it here.

I think I might go with the Asus A7V8X just for that. Anyone know when Serial ATA Drives will be hitting the market?

 

[Vehementi]

I was about to ask the same question...

I was thinking either the A7V333 or the A7V8X. I'm pretty sure about the A7V8X. I want I want!!!

An odd thing to consider is that the A7V8X performed better with DDR333 than it did with DDR400

 

[NicColt]

Overclockers has a very interesting article about the KT400 if your thinking of overclocking it.

"What you need to know if you plan on running at well over 200MHz (which you probably should be planning on doing with future 166MHz FSB TBred/Barton CPUs) is finding out whether or not the motherboard supports a /6 divisor.

Why is this important? It could well be the difference between your machine working and not working at your desired goal.

But My Motherboard Can Run Up To 250MHz!

Can I sell you a bridge?

No, you have a setting on your motherboard that says "250MHz." Just because you have a setting doesn't mean it's going to work. In fact, it almost certainly won't work."