Upgrading to VIA Kt266A board NEED OPINIONS

[PeteJ]

I will soon be upgrading my EPOX 8KHA board. After reading the January roundup, I am giving the nod to the ABIT KR7A-Raid board. I would also consider the EPOX 8KHA+ if opinions here differ from the conclusions of that article. I haven't searched other sites for their tests etc. Has anyone done more research about them? Your opinions would be appreciated.

 

[Mem]

You don`t say if you need RAID or not,anyway the Epox 8KHA+ is an excellent board if you don`t need RAID, speaking from experience here,very easy to setup and rock solid stability.

 

[daywalker]

Better give a little extra money and get an ASUS. You will have more stability in your system that way... i dont trust Epox or Abit

 

[Mem]

<< Better give a little extra money and get an ASUS. You will have more stability in your system that way... i dont trust Epox or Abit >>



WTF?...you don`t know what you`re talking about,if you want to pay more for nothing fine,but don`t try & tell me Epox are not as good as Asus on stability.

 

[daywalker]

<<

<< Better give a little extra money and get an ASUS. You will have more stability in your system that way... i dont trust Epox or Abit >>



WTF?...you don`t know what you`re talking about,if you want to pay more for nothing fine,but don`t try & tell me Epox are not as good as Asus on stability. >>



Mem, all these years that im building my PC's (although im no expert) i have trusted non other than ASUS when it comes to motherboards and had no problems whatsoever. THATS why im telling the man to get an ASUS if he can afford it...

 

[microAmp]

I had the A7V133 rock stable, now have the Epox 8kha+ and is stable too, I like them both, but would say the Epox 7kxa didn't do to well at first until a lot of BIOS tweaking.

Both are good and would recommend either of them, maybe ASUS a bit more with longer time in BIOS support.

 

[Mem]

<< THATS why im telling the man to get an ASUS if he can afford it... >>



Asus is no better then other top brands,people think because they pay more they are getting extra stability,wrong! User error is 99% of the problem with boards ,the other 1% faulty hardware etc.

Asus are not like what they use to be,the fact is other brands are now as good and cheaper too,the truth hurts .

 

[gbrux]

Kyle Bennett's personal box uses the MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU. You know kyle? He's runs HardOCP. www.hardocp.com.

Also, I've seen a couple of the people at Tom's Hardware use the MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU in some it's hardware tests and reviews.

Of course, I have the same motherboard; its great. Although you will see the benchmarks shoing the Asus and the Abit KT266A models at the top, those mobos can't touch the MSI in features: on board Promise IDE RAID controller, on board USB 2.0 (total of 8 USB ports, 4 USB 1.1 and 4 USB 2.0), and other KT266A features. If you add the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy, you will have a box with a 1394/firewire port as well as great sound.

Incidentally, if it were me looking for a new motherboard, I'd look for a KT333 chipset with the extra features. Make sure it supports onboard bus speed and DDR RAM at 166 MHz.

 

[SteelyKen]

I agree with gbrux on his last comment. If you are looking for a new Athlon board, there is no reason to go with anything but the new KT333 boards. I am upgrading myself and that is all I looked at. I chose the MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU because of the great features and performance.

 

[Slawsk]

All the 8KHA+ is an 8KHA with a KT266A NorthBridge. Nothing else. Not to say there is anything wrong with this board, I personally use it. The 8KHA+ was MainBoard of the year at [H. Now, if I were in the marketplace for a new board today, I'd wait for tomorrow, when the KT400 (figuritavely speaking, as the KT400 won't be out till June at least) rolls out as the KT333 really doesn't have much better performance than the KT333. The KT400 will pair up with AGP 8x support, USB 2.0 features standard, and support of PC3200. Rumer has it that it will also have support for serial ATA? I would stick around with the 8KHA if I were you.

 

[PeteJ]

Thanks. This just shows how behind the curve I am. I had thought from casual headline reading that the KT 333 was just an upgrade that allowed networking of computers. I will certainly wait for the upgrade to KT 400 but I'm afraid of VIA new releases based on their past history. Maybe a 333A eh.