ASUS A7M or cheaper A7A??? AMD regulars please help!

[MASTOURA]

Guys, I feel kind of lost. I want to built my first AMD machine after having built about 6 Intel machines, but I have a HUGE problem: I don't know which mobo to choose!!!

I have read reviews, comments and posts in this forum, but got even more mixed up. From what I understand is that there's no true "best" mobo for the mmoment. Most people reccomend to "wait" but this is not a solution I think. Waiting will always bring better technology...

So here I am asking the "regulars" of AMD systems a favor: Which board to choose???? I don't really want to OC the 1.33 Tbird I will buy, but "you never know". So for me the most important things are:

a) proper DDR management from the board
b) excellent stability
c) more than average performance
d) slight OC capabilities.

Does anyone know which board is the right one for me? Thanks in advance.

MASTOURA

PS: I will couple the board with a 1.33 Tbird, an ATI AIW Radeon 32MB, a SB live, and with 2*256MB of DDR RAM. I just list these in case there are problems I should be aware of. Thanks again.

[Sleep21]

I will probably get a lot of people who disagree, but for you it sound like the A7A266 os a better bet. The ALi Magik chipset is supposed to be Stable, but not a fast. Whereas the AMD 761 is more for speed, however it is generally stable. The 30 to 50 dollars extra for the 761 make it less of a good value. In september, the A7A should start shipping with a revision of the Ali Magik chipset, making it's speed on par with the SiS chipset. I will be waiting. I was planning to build my computer this week, but will instead wait for the A7A to sport the revision. Maybe the 1.5 Athlons will be out by then :-)

Hope that helped

[lost-and-found]

The A7A 266 is a great choice. Not only because it allows DDR and PC133 RAM, but also because it is quite stable. I have a system with the board running a 1.2GHz T-bird 266. THe only problem with this is that the temps are high (I don't know if it's the board's sensor or anything).

I would go with the A7A again.

[MASTOURA]

Thanks for the replies guys. Up to now it seems that the A7A - A7M score is 2 - 0 http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

However, concerning the Magic chipset I am kind of...nervous when it comes down buying it. Websites such as tomshardware refer to it as an "inferior" chipset and reccomend going for the AMD chipset. I am very puzzled here... I planned to build my computer this week also, but this mobo thing seems to be delaying my system a lot. Anyway, thanks again for the replies. I hope more people will reply so I get a better idea...

M.

[Comage]

Doesn't the A7M use the AMD760 chipset? If you want less potential problems to arise from using your system, I think you should go for the A7M. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[BobyJo]

If you will research this question you will plainly see that the AMD 761 chipset outpaces the ALi chipset by quite a margine.

The AMD chipset is top dog at this time. The ALi has multitudes of problems, The A7M266 is also the top dog for stability, speed, and ease of setup. (if you can research and set the board up properly, not letting friends tell you "I think")

You can to to several sites and read the reviews of AMD versis ALi chipsets and you will plainly see the AMD is far above ALi.

So I will recommend you do the research and make up your own mind before you order something you will regret 30days from now.

[Galadriel]

My mobo is the A7A266 and I am having modem problems. I purchased and installed an AMR modem but can't find drivers for it, neither on Windows nor on CD that came with modem. Can anyone help me?

[bill1971]

Mastoura:
Oddly enough, my latest "hog" is just the
setup that you describe: (It is also my first
Athlon build) :
1.33 GHz(266)Athlon
ThermoEngine HSF
Asus A7M266
ATI AIW Radeon
Soundblaster Live Platinum
2x256MB sticks of Crucial DDR RAM
60 GB IBM 7200RPM HDD

I picked the A7M due to the reviews I read
about the AMD chipset over the Ali.
The board is a little pricey,but the system has been solid,except for my post on trying
to get the Hardware monitoring to read my
case fan RPMs.
Make certain you update the drivers and
players for the ATI - pretty large download.
Hope this helps.
- Bill

[This message has been edited by bill1971 (edited 08-26-2001).]

[This message has been edited by bill1971 (edited 08-26-2001).]