AMD Athlon XP recommanded mobo

[Djinn]

Hello everyone,

I am soon planing to buy an AMD Athlon XP system. (CPU, motherboard, RAM, Power supply(?)).

I would like to know what you guys would recommand for the motherboard.

Here's what I want, for the motherboard;

ATA-100
On-board audio
DDR SDRam memory support (no crappy SDRam / DDR combo)

**
Here's what I will be keeping from my previous PC;

Nikao MT-2000 Case (300 watts power supply)
**** Is this power supply "strong" enough for the AMD system?

ASUS V6800 video card
Netgear FA310 TX NIC
ASUS 52x Max CDRom drive
Yamaha CDRW2100
Keyboard / mouse / monitor
IBM Deskstar 60GXP (40.0 GB , ATA-100)
Quantum Fireball LM Plus (15.0 GB, ATA-66)

******

I'm a ASUS products buyer, and the A7V266-E is REALLY interesting (Except for the 250$ Canadian bucks price). As for the MSI board, it's the same VIA Chipset than the one on the ASUS mobo, pretty much the same features, for 100$ cheaper...

Well? What should I do?

Thanks for your time!

[jbell255]

After doing a lot of research for the system I'm about to build I've decided on the Epox EP-8HKA (http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8kha.htm) (kt266) which has top of the line componants and a lot of nifty features. It can be found here (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=22&manufactory=1318&DEPA=1) for only $87 (US). Hope this helps and good luck to you.

[Peter M]

If you want VIA KT266A chipset and don't need SDRAM sockets, you might want to look at ECS K7VTA3 as well. Board revision 2 has the KT266A, and is AMD recommended for Athlon XP. The board is a top performer and way cheaper than the rest. What you don't get is overclocking toys, and the sound comes from the VIA chipset's sound engine not from a more sophisticated separate chip.

regards, Peter

[BobyJo]

The Epox 8KHA+ is the speed demon, top of all offerings at present. The price is good as of now, about $100.00 at most venders..Has all features of jumperless bios settings.. The only two jumpers on the whole mobo is clear cmos, and the primarly cpu frequency setting 100-133. With the XP cpu you will need to set the frequency at 133 and unless you flash your bios, the clear cmos need not be used..

I recommend these mobo's, we have two of them..The first one is a 8KHA and the second is the 8KHA+, the first a KT266 chipset and the second is KT266a chipset..The latter is the fastest chipset on the market as of now..

There are somewhere in the area of 15 KT266a mobo's on the market as of now..All of them are very simular..Some outperform the most and a lot are in a close second, a few come up at the bottom of the scale..

[jbell255]

Only thing is that the 8HKA+ is more than $35 more than the 8HKA.

[BobyJo]

We have both the 8KHA & 8KHA+,,believe me the + version is more valuable than the $35.00..The boards are identical in design, the major difference is the northbridge controller, results in the KT266a chipset..This chipset is the fastest chipset available as of this date..

The difference in price in USA is $100.00 for the 8KHA+ and in the $80.00 range for the 8KHA..

Both boards are quality products, the + version with the KT266a chipset is much faster than the 8KHA version..Matter of fact the KT266 board benches 843 and the 8KHA+ benches 864, the first KT266 is not a slouch of a mobo, the KT266a is actually a speed demon..The 8KHA+ is a perfect fit for the XP version of AMD's processors..

[BigBirdZ28]

I think looking at the chipset first is the best way to narrow down the boards.

The best chipsets i've seen are the VIA266A & the AMD 760/MP.

btw, killer id. :eek:

[Easy]

Thought from a novice (in UK) - looking into same thing (Athlon XP compatible m'bd)

I found link to Earthweb Hardware Reviews useful. Might be worth looking at article by Vince Freeman on Weekly Platform Trends - "Rushed Motherboard Debuts Plague...." - he looks at 3 early KT266+ m'bds.

Highlights BIOS problems, comes out in clear favour of EPoX 8KHA+, but cautions to make sure you get it with BIOS revision N+. Apparently there are plenty around with older BIOSes.

Anyone have info on other solid m'boards, with recent BIOS revisions as alternatives?

As I said - I'm a novice: so I don't know what I could use from old set up if I did this. Current setup is Shuttle 561-P, with AMD K6-2 500, pc-100 SDRAM, Quantum 8.4gb, VooDoo3dfx 3500, Creative AWP32E (which I don't think I'd need with the EPoX as it has own sound?), plus CD-RW (Iomega), and CTX 56x CD-Rom. I'm sure thses will go across, and the HDD, don't know about the VooDoo, or memory, and sure I'll have to get a new case/power supply.

Just looking to upgrade fairly cheaply for now (probably 1600XP+), but eventually re-build the original, and have a second PC...

Easy

[Easy]

Try also looking at Tom's Hardware pages - review of 13 boards, compares VIA KT266A to Nvidia nForce 420D. Concludes the 266A way better. Soyo and Soltek boards come out best, but EPoX performs well and I'm not sure the test had it with N+ bios revision, here:
Tom's Hardware Pages - Motherboard Mega Test (http://www4.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q4/011126/index.html)

[setiguy2000]

Like the other posts state: If you want to overclock and push the envelope... so to speak; the EPOX 8KHA+ is the way to go. They make an excellent MB, I had one with a 700 Slot A Athlon and liked it. It uses the 266A chipset

If you want stability... I like the Gigabyte GA-7DX rev4.0, Rock solid, good performance, DDR RAM (two slots), plus it has a BIOS update program you can use through the Windows OS supplied on the driver disk. It also comes with an Overclocker program you can run from Windows. It is XP compatible if you update the BIOS to version F5, which the above mentioned program does automatically for you via the internet! Cool Huh? :cool:

P.S
It uses the AMD 761 Northbridge chipset and a Creative Soundchip on board. Go to: www.giga-byte.com

[Thetrousertrout]

I'm still quite new to computers and had a friend of mine help me put a computer together,I have an athlon xp 1600+cpu and am using a Gigabyte GA7VTX-E motherboard, the motherboard has software built in that lets me overclock it if I want to and was a very good price ($155.00 Canadian) I'm happy with it and it went together very easly, It also has 3 slots for DDR ram. Look into it if you are interested but I will say that I am very happy with it! I'm also using a 300w power supply and have no problems!I forgot the Motherboard also has dual bios chips.

[The Highlander]

I believe that one of the best boards out there (not to say The best) is the Abit KG7-Raid

I have this board after a lot of time searching. It is one of the most stable boards out there. I think is the only one you fill all DDR Dimms and be stable...

Most of them with just one or 2 at the most...

The only thing was that the chipset HSF is a bit crappy, I lapped it and SCREWD it to the motherboard with artic silver to improve reliability...

I run at 146MHZ bus STRONGLY STABLE!!!! NO CRASHES OF ANY KINDS....

I am running an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ oc@1607MHz

I have my case totally open with one 120mm fan blowing in front of the MCX462

Everything is below the default voltage, becasue when I did the bios update when the voltage is set to 1.75 it actually sends 1.73 and under some load goes down to 1.70. This says a lot about the chip...

I've run it 16hours straight and my top temp was 39.9C

My ambient temp es 30-32C

[Djinn]

Thanks everyone for your advises. I just bought yesterday my new motherboard, CPU, RAM, fan.

Here's what I got;

ASUS A7V266-E (Rev 1.07, BIOS 1004B)
AMD Athlon XP 1600+
1 x 256 MB DDR PC2100 Elixir
GlobalWIN heatsink & fan.


Everything worked fine for the assembly (after a few holes drilled, screws unscrewed, harddrives moves, cdrom / cdrw moves).

WinXP Pro installation went fine, no glitches, no problems at all!

One slight problem that The Highlander might want to help me with, it is concerning the temperature. The clerk at the store assured me that the GlobalWIN heatsink & fan would get my CPU temperature to 45C. But that's not the case... With or without my case open, my CPU temperature is around 65C and my mobo is stable at around 37-39C.

I don't have a secondary fan in my casing, would it R-E-A-L-L-Y make a difference?

I adjust the PC Probe (ASUS utility to continously monitor temperature/voltage settings) settings to shutdown my computer when ever my computer gets too hot. For about 4 hours straight yesterday, my computer went fine and nothing bad happened.

One other thing; concerning the VCore Voltage (in the bios / pc probe). Sometimes, it gets as high as 13.xxxx and PC Probe begins to freak, but the voltage goes down after a few seconds. Would anyone tell me what is this "VCore Voltage" and what can I do about it?

Thanks a lot.

Djinn

[setiguy2000]

Your CPU temps are way too high!

Sounds like you need to take off the heatsink and get rid of the the "thermal pad" or whatever GlobalWin put on that heatsink. Most "factory applied" thermal compounds/pads don't work that well. Since you stated that the CPU temp doesn't vary whether the case is open or closed, it sounds like the CPU to heatsink mating is not very good. Using a good quality heatsink and Artic Silver II you should get CPU temps of around the mid-40's or so at the highest loads.

I would reccomend using Artic Silver II, it's the best there is, highly rated by any hardware website. Be sure to remove all traces of the old pad/compound with either methy alcohol or B-12 Chemtool.

AMD also reccomends that there be at least two case fans in addtion to the PSU fan. One should be located down low in front to suck in cool air, and the other should be located high in the back of the case, usually there's a mounting for one, near the PSU area. Athlons are "heavy breathers" so to speak, and like lots of cool air moving through the case.

Vcore voltage refers to the CPU's core voltage that drives the processor. XP's have a Vcore of 1.75 volts. You might need to double-check your BIOS settings and/or DIP switch settings.

I hope this helps. Stay cool!
Setiguy2000:cool:

[Djinn]

Hi there,

I just added a SUNON casing fan just around my CPU fan (the Sunon is oriented to exhaust the hot air) and I manager to get my CPU temperature down about 8 degrees. While running games, I turn around 58-59 C (which is a little bit better). I am planning on gettin' another fan to fix it to the front of my casing to act as the Intake (for cool air).

I think my GlobalWIN CPU Heatsink & fan might not be seated well, that might cause the "over heat". My friend's got the same CPU, FAN and has no problems. Both fans turn to about 4500RPM steady...

I also bought to Arctic Silver II grease to cool all the stuff. Haven't "creamed" my CPU yet. I am kind of affraid to mess things up. I'll wait a few hours for my CPU to kool down to room temperature and get going with the arctic silver.

Thanks for your help SetiGuy2000 and if you have some advices on how to apply ASII cream, I'll be grateful.

Thanks again.

Djinn