Recommendations for a new motherboard

[starwarsdad]

I am planning on building a new system in the next few days. Which motherboard do you recommend and why?

I am using:

Athlon 1600XP+ processor
256MB Crucial DDR
ATI AIW Radeon will entertain alternate suggestions but I want video editing and encoding and some gaming
have a couple of 40 GB drives and would be interested in RAID or not


I am willing to spend up to about $150. I will use the SIS 635 or VIA KT266A chipset, or any other that supports DDR.

I will not be O/Cing this box so extra BIOS features are not important in that respect. I just want stability and performance with stock bus settings.

I have looked at:

Epox 8KHA+
ECS K7S5A
SOYO K7V Dragon+

What do you think?

 

[Nathan124]

Go with the Dragon Plus. It has on board sound (6 Channel!) and on board Hugh speed. Myne is verry stable, and I think I would have regretted getting an Epox 8KHA+ Motherboard.

 

[starwarsdad]

I just built my workstation here at the office using the 8KHA+ and have been satisfied so far. The reason I have looked so closely at the Dragon+ is the extra features (RAID & sound!) it offers for another $50.

 

[Wind]

If u wan RAID...soyo dragon +

No RAID...recommend Epox 8KHA+. I'm using it myself...stable & no probs.

 

[MrPALCO]

I recommend the Epox 8kha+. I have one setup with 256 of Crucial and a Duron 700. I purchased it because of the stability, product support, reputation, price and resale when I want to upgrade.
The board has performed flawlessly and an added bonus is the unboard sound. This rig is not used for high audio applications so the unboard sound is more than adequate.

 

[lmbebo]

got my msi kt266a board this morning (no usb 2 or raid though). Couldn't be happier.

Im running it with a amd xp 1600+ and 256 megs of crucial ram

i got mine for 102? from newegg, the one with raid and usb2 is 120 or so.

its not the fastest mb out there, but the speed is hardly noticeable anyways.

 

[starwarsdad]

What about the SHUTTLE AK31A? How does it compare for those not interested in overclocking?

 

[LostHiWay]

If you want RAID get the Iwill XP333-R. All the KT266A boards don't work with RAID0 even with the patch from VIA. RAID performace will be horrible.

If you don't need RAID I like the Epox 8KHA+. I used it and was rock solid.

 

[AZGamer]

<< If you want RAID get the Iwill XP333-R. All the KT266A boards don't work with RAID0 even with the patch from VIA.. >>



Onboard RAID was not affected in the KT266A generation due to the new V-Link architecture. Only add-on card RAID or previous chipsets RAID was affected. That said, the PCI Latency patch solves any and all speed issues concerning RAID.

With Raid reccomedation: ABIT KR7A-RAID
Without Raid reccomendation: Epox 8KHA+

 

[Wind]

<< If you want RAID get the Iwill XP333-R. All the KT266A boards don't work with RAID0 even with the patch from VIA. RAID performace will be horrible. >>


I must stress here tht the patch from viahardware do in fact circumvent the RAID probs on the KT266A mobo.

Even in non RAID environment, the HDD score had increase using the patch...in another words the patch works. Having said tht, the extent of its effectiveness is unknown.