Post Your MB Opinions Here

[Mlope]

My buddy is shopping for a motherboard like this:
Thunderbird slot A (single processor)
DDR ram
Raid
no onboard video
He says cost is no object
So what is the best??

[Imperion1]

I think you mean a Thunderbird socket A.

But for a DDR board, for now, a mobo with the Ali Magik chipset is a slower board.

Good boards are MSI, ASUS, Abit is coming out with one.

I have the EPOX EP8k7a (non-raid) and like it very much.
The EPOX EP8k7a+ is the raid board.

Just do some searching and comparing, also what else is he looking for. For example, does he want 5 or 6 PCI slots?

[Brangwen]

Consider the Iwill boards that are so often over looked despite excellent reviews.

Here (http://www.iwillusa.com/home/home.asp)

Brangwen http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

[Kuasimodem]

The Abit KG7-RAID us supposed to be released on June 21st, and be available at retailers about 2 weeks after that. Priced in the $180 to $200 range. Saving my pennies so I can get one! Then my KT7-RAID will become my bedroom puter.

[Mlope]

You're right Imperion, it is the socket A Thunderbird.
It appears that there are quite a few quality RAID boards out there, but my buddy, the patient type, has his heart set on the upcoming ABIT board. Thanks for your help,
Mike

[Imperion1]

The Abit KG7 board looks pretty sweet. Just checked it out at the abit site.
Two problems about the board,
First, getting the heatsink on is gonna be a tight fight at the back.
And B(lol), the location of the raid IDE (IDE 2 and 3) make it a little difficult to use in a full tower. Both IDEs sit toward the bottom of the board so you will have to use either 24" or 32" ATA66 ribbon cables.

My EPOX 8k7a is kinda the same. IDE0 and IDE1 sit at the bottom. Had to go with longer cables, my system its in is a full tower.

[Axel]

Just dropping by to read - but thought I'd comment about the RAID item -

I'd highly recommend not getting RAID on the board - get a seperate PROMISE or Adaptec PCI adapter for it that is well supported and upgradeable with a seperate flash BIOS.

So - does he want SCSI or IDE/EIDE/ATA for his drive connections? That too will make a difference.....

Value for the money - I'd look at getting a PROMISE IDE RAID card - two hot swap drive bays and two 40GB 7200RPM 2MB onboard cache ATA100 Quantum drives and do a RAID 1 mirroring set-up. This will beat , in speed and cost, a comparable SCSI set-up, but isn't quite as scalable as SCSI is.

[Mlope]

Imperion1, I tried to include the picture of the new kg7r board below. Are the IDE connectors the green ones along side the power plug or the red ones behind the PCI slots?
<IMG SRC="http://home.pacbell.net/mlope/kg7r.gif" border=0> (anybody know why this won't work?)
Thanks for the advice Axel, but why a seperate Raid card? It seems more convinient (and cheaper)to get RAID built into the motherboard.
I believe my friend is interested in IDE, and striping rather than mirroring (for faster performance rather than backup)

Mike


[This message has been edited by Mlope (edited 06-19-2001).]

[This message has been edited by Mlope (edited 06-20-2001).]

[jad1097]

The raid connectors are the orange ones at the bottom. As far as getting a HSF on it goes it is looks no worse than a KT7A, in other words no problem. I can’t even to begin to comprehend why so many people have problems with HSF’s on Socket A boards. I take the fan off the HS and use a screwdriver inserted in between the fins on the HS to push the clip in.
http://www.abit.com.tw/english/product/motherboards/kg7.htm

I think your pic does not work is because of the space before the [/img] tag.



[This message has been edited by jad1097 (edited 06-21-2001).]

[Mlope]

Yup Jad, that did the trick
Mike