Newsgroup: it.comp.hardware.motherboard
Titolo: AMD 1GHz Mobo... FIC/MSI/Gigabyte/Epox/Soyo/Abit/Asus?! What 2 get?!

If I am really not up for the hours and hours of research to decide for
myself... your opinions? Which one do you have? Are ya happy with it? Do you
wish you bought another brand? Have you spent the time researching and
decided which one to get? I have been pricing boards with Thunderbird chips
over at 
pricewatch.com
, and am fixing to go with either a Gigabyte GA7IXE4 @
$282+$15sh, or an MSI K7Tpro2A @ $299+$15sh... or perhaps a Soyo K7VTA-B at
the same $299. Hmm. Such hard decisions. I want: stability, ATA100 (but 66
is fine I guess, considering I need to save $), it would be nice to be able
to tweak FSB and the CPU Multiplier from within the BIOS, but considering
how poor I am right now I could forgo that. Anyway, must buy this week...
gotta have speed! :) Thanks in advance for any comments!
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Get the Abit KT7A. Here's a link to a review of it.
http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/mainboards/abit/kt7a/index.html
I've noticed just about every site says the same things about this board.All
good.

 wrote in message
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But I dun think you can seek it in ottawa...yet
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 wrote in message
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 wrote in message
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i cannot seem to find the kt7a -raid board myself, just the regualr kt7-raid
board.
what does the "A" board have over the regular board?
sorry to hijack the thread, but i have done the hours and hours of research, and
this is THE thunderbird board!
the micro has built in sound, and i have an sb live platnum that i feel is far
better. disabling never works 100%, so i would steer clear of any built in sound
boards.
also, the 900 will do a ghz with no sweat generally, so you could save 40-70 bux
right there!
good luck
Mark Duell wrote:

--
visit my webpages...
http://home.socal.rr.com/griffinsreef/reefpage.html
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good luck
The primary difference is the A boards can run at the 266 FSB. I just
ordered on today.
--
Denjiro
ICQ#:688247

 wrote in message
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Last time I got the Abit BE6-II board to go with an Intel Coppermine PIII
600MHz. It has been a stable board, but has caused me pain on multiple
occasions with resource conflicts and it's integrated onboard ATA66
controller. I don't want to have to worry about special drivers/etc... Win2k
and Win98 were both tricky installs with that board, so I have pretty much
ruled Abit out this time around. I also remember problems with VIA chipsets
from years back, with AGP and UDMA IDE support.
Considering how poor I am right now, I may just go with this one
(
http://www.ecsusa.com/product/socketa/k7vza-p.htm
) for only $265 from
pricewatch with a 1GHz Thunderbird. I would spring for the $300-$335 models
if they were truly worth the premium.
Thanks for your comments!


 Biostar
I did have a nice Biostar board a few years ago that was good to me... lets
check: M7VKB @ $314 from pricewatch. Little pricie compared to that ECS
K7VZA (based on the same chipset) for $265 but it is AMD Recommended. Is it
worth the difference in price? I mean, even the Soyo is only $299! Nah, I
don't think it's worth the $49 more... I mean, that's like the cost of 5
pizzas! ;)
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 ABIT KT7A-RAID is the best one out there.
Yeah, and that would prep me for a future upgrade to RAID 0 with two ATA100
drives. but my current BE6-II has that same HPT370 controller on it and it's
caused me some grief in the past with OS loads and resource conflicts.
That's a tough call, it's $334 @ pricewatch. Nah, I am too poor to spend
money prepping for a future upgrade right now... when I have more money (it
always comes in waves with me), I will want a new mobo/cpu/etc anyway. I
think I might stick to the $265 ECS board. Such are the dilemmas of a techie
consumer.
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 right there!
Hmm... I have felt that disabling the sound has always worked fine for me
(it's all in your head that it doesn't work 100%! :) and I don't mind it
living as a spare on the mobo in case I sell it off in a working PC the next
time I upgrade and want to keep my sound card (it's a sweet Santa Cruz)! The
900 is an idea, but I kinda feel like going all out to a 1GHz... then
perhaps I can pull 1.1 or 1.2 out of it?!
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 Sometime in the next 2-4 weeks I would guess.
Nah, gotta order tomorrow for overnight delivery! :)
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 will send that information to you.............
I found that MSI board for $299 with the 1GHz... it does look like a good
mobo, but is it worth $35 more then the ECS board? It does have the ATA100
support, but I don't really need it right now. Can I get a CNR Ethernet card
for it? Does it come with the header for the extra USB ports?
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Brief followup here just in case anyone is interested... I found an MSI
K7T-Pro2A in town for $110, and a 1GHz for it @ $210. Excellent mobo, and
it's installed and running right now. I think I am going to like it! Nice
suprise was to find out the last hard drive I bought was an ATA100! 1GHz
rocks. l8r
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