Stable Mobo

[NewCompGeek]

A stable mobo that will not crash while gaming and such

ive done a little research and this is what i came up with:

Shuttle AK11 $70
Fic Az11EA $80
ECS K75KA $60
ECS K7VTA3 $75
Soyo Sy-K7ADA $80
Epox 8KTA3L $80

 

[Boonesmi]

the best thing to do is decide what chipset you want

amd 760: (ddr ram) is a very good chipset, its getting a little older, but its tried and tested

via kt133a(sdr ram) its also a very good chipset, at least in my opinion, but alot older and ddr ram is the future (one of the boards on your list was a kt133a, the epox 8kta3)

via kt266 (ddr) a pretty good chipset, but its performance was kinda lacking

via kt266a (ddr) the same as the kt266 but much much improved performance (the fastest chipset you can buy)

ali magik (ddr) not the greatest in my opinion... price is high, performance is lacking

sis 735 (sdr & ddr) a very good chipset, but..... very few board makers used it, and the ones that did are low quality companys (ecs k7s5a is the board im talking about)



me personally i would get a board based on the via kt266a chipset (epox 8kha+, asus a7v266-e, etc)

 

[jamesbond007]

Boonesmi, I couldn't have said it better myself. I second the EPoX 8KHA+ as well as the Asus A7V266-E. Very solid motherboards, both being very stable and fast. The EPoX is cheaper, but every bit as good as the Asus. Asus is known for high-quality motherboards, which is the reason for the higher prices you will find.

 

[So]

I agree with boonesmi and jamesbond, I wanted stability and performance - I looked around and decided on kt266a - I heard a lot of good and bad about the 8kha+ but there seemed to be a lot of issues with them deing dead out of the box so I focused on the KR7A-Raid and the A7V266-E, I went with the KR7A, just because I have had good experiences with them before - the board has some known setup hitches (the ram requires a lot force and the cpu temp sensor tends to need to be bent down before the CPU will seat well) - but I got around them and this thing has been rock solid (not a single crash in the past few weeks since I installed it. I have not heard of any such issues with the A7V266-E. If I were you I'd go with the A7V266-E (simply because you probably don't want to worry about the aforementioned 'isssues' - but I wouldn't hesitate to repeat my purchase. Either board will almost definitely make you happy, but I would avoid the 8KHA+ (yes, I know that many people are very happy with it, but I didn't want such a high risk of a dead board) - anyway good luck, the KT266A has restored my faith in VIA.

 

[Blain]

Is the Epox a fast "booter"?

 

[LetsPlayGames]

dead boards? weird where are you at?
here in New Zealand I got one just 2 weeks ago, works a treat. My supplier gets them direct and has sold about 30 with no problems, I haven't heard of these problem. I run mine with WinXP for up to 8 hours with out a single boot. I actually got the board because his supply of Gigabyte (no problems either) was out of stock.

the KT266a is really fast, the KT133a is a bit iffy from what I have seen locally.

 

[Wind]

Another vote for Epox 8KHA+.

 

[Mem]

I use my Epox 8KHA+ for gaming it`s great on stability ,yes it boots pretty fast mind you I`m using XP which boots fast anyway .

 

[L00PY]

<< sis 735 (sdr & ddr) a very good chipset, but..... very few board makers used it, and the ones that did are low quality companys (ecs k7s5a is the board im talking about) >>



Considering that ECS was the second largest mobo maker last time I checked (and may become the largest with over 12 million shipped this year iirc), I always wonder about comments like these. It's not too hard to put together a stable system with an ECS board if you know what you're doing and use quality components.

Getting a stable system depends as much upon your other components, your choice of OS, your drivers, and your system building skills as it does on mobo choice.

 

[starwarsdad]

I have used the 8KHA and am very happy with it.

I am building a system next week based on the ecs k7s5a. Hopefully, I will have similar success with it.

I am also building a box based on the SOYO K7V Dragon + next week.

Picking the right chipset is the big decision though.

 

[DARTHSINDER]

I have the Soyo Dragon, and am very happy with it. I have had no problems with it.

Games work great with it!

 

[WhiteWizard]

Well my friend just buy a SOYO Dragon Plus (KT266A with RAID), and it worked good, but a little slow on booting. I tryed to overclock using the BIOS, since it have all the parameters there, but it didn't accept on booting at 1333mhz with 133Mhz bus (10x133), not only it didn't overclock but you have to reset the BIOS with the jumper for making it boot again at default speed (it was an Athlon B 1200). It was extange because my A7V133 alows it, I sopouse there were diferent chips, you know closed bridges or something. My fried came to me last week saying that he was changed the board for a A7V266-E, I test the overclocking again and this time it work perfectly, but they apears to be similar boards, and also, when the ASUS didn't overclock, you reset it and boot at default speed, no need to reset the BIOS.


Alejandro