Hardware used in AMD XP tests

[im2nic2]

Hi guys,
I'm a new member and have surfed around quite a lot before I buy my system. I'm a poor college student so price is important to me. I was wondering what motherboard you used in you tests of the AMD Athlon XP 1800+. I also wanted to know what heatsink and fan you think would be best. I was going for a 1400 Athlon on a A7V266 motherboard before I saw the new CPU. Now what?
Thank you,
Ryan †

[clutchy]

geeze man, there's so many options, honestly i wouldn't buy a kt266 mobo like the a7v266, it's not a bad board but the performance just isn't there. the kt266a however is there, all of it. It's the fastest mobo out, and i think they should start showing up pretty soon. the xp's are really nice i was just reading some results last night and as far as spanking goes they rip the 2ghz p4, in most of the tests honestly it goes back and forth, but we're talking about 470mhz here. the 1.4 is still a good investment though if you want that. If you want to upgrade to one of the new xp's maybe you should wait awhile for some of the newer boards to come out. the epox 8kha is supposed to be awesome. Good luck, and if you have any other question you can email me at [email protected] if you want...

[GraingerGuy]

The shuttle ak-31 rev. 3.1 is a good mobo.....but I would wait just a tad longer to get a kt266a mobo. Wait until a lot of them come out so that you can read up on the reviews...:)

[im2nic2]

[H]ardOCP says the A7V266 is a very good performer. It can be overclocked well beyond what the 1.4GHz chip can handle (unless you have a lot of liquid nitrogen and spare time). Also I searched Google for a7v266a but only found about 15 japanese pages? I've never heard of it, how is it different from a7v266?
Ryan †

[MusashiM]

The KT266a is a different chipset than the KT266. It is supposed to be faster and have better performance.

[clutchy]

musashi, you might want to preview your posts a little... it's coming out in a little while. Honestly the kt266 is really slow for a ddr chipset. The amd761 is alot faster, and the sis735 is even faster than that. The kt266a will hopefully change all of that. I'm just talking chipsets right now, you'll have to find manufacturers that make boards with these chipsets. I you want Asus the a7v266 is the kt266 the a7m266 is the amd761 the a7a266 is the ali majik, which is just a piece of ****e. epox makes boards too, if you want to upgrade now, honestly the only board i can recommend is the epox 8k7a it's amd 761 and very stable. the a7m266 is good, but it's really expensive. If you feel like talking some chances ECS makes the k7s5a which is a sis735 chipset fastest ddr out, but they don't have many oc options and the board has met with mixed feelings. MSI is making an sis735 chipset too, but it's not out yet, but should be out shortly.

I'm sure the a7v266 was a good performer when that review came out, but that was quite a while ago, and that chipset just can't compete anymore. It's still ddr though, and it's still faster than pc133 chipsets, so just weigh out what you need, and go with it.

[MusashiM]

hehe, sorry clutchy... it was a typo... honestly, how could a KT266a be a different and faster chipset than a KT266a? hehe... sorry, need to edit... I guess I didn't learn too much from DarkFury's seminar on typos... hehe, or maybe I did! :hmm:

[clutchy]

it happens, I do it all the time, but that one just happened to change the meaning of your entire post.

[MusashiM]

And who would have thought that a simple letter a could be so powerful!?! :P