PCA Forums

About to take the Athlon plunge and wondering if I could get a majority opinion here as to the best (non-raid) motherboard. Reading the reviews and also comments by actual users would lead me to believe the MSI K7T TURBO is the all-around winner.

AMD has removed Abit boards from their recommended list, so they are out. My other choice might be the Asus, but it seems a LOT of people are having troubles with that board.

Any serious thoughts appreciated. Any non-serious thoughts also appreciated.

ps: what's the SHORTEST (least tall) ATX case you guys know of (not for the Athlon)?

I have the Abit KT7a -RAID(zero problems) and a buddy of mine bought the MSI 2nd edition (on my recommendation) and is having serious stability troubles. It is a prference thing I guess, I just like the Abit's and am quite familiar with them.

I have an Epox 7KXA. It's pretty good. havent really had any board attrbuted problems. And my alpha fits real nice on there too the DIMMS dont get in the way. Uses the KX133 chipset. Or are u lookin for a Socket A? This one is SlotA

Only looking for KT133A boards??? The Abit (aaargh!) was almost my choice until I read a lot more user comments. That combined with AMD's actions led me to rule it out for now.
I do like the fact that Abit has not completely abandoned the ISA slot.

I just purchased the MSI K7T Turbo, and it's by far the best motherboard I've ever used! Zero problem setting it up, and I got my Duron 700 running at 133mhz fsb(933mhz)!

I highly recommend it. If you have any questions, post here and I can answer it for you.

BTW, the MSI board is actually cheaper than Asus and Abit, yet it's so well built.

Coco, how's the boot up time on that board. The only other MSI board I've owned was an I815E and I wasn't impressed with all the contortions the board went through during boot.

I have the KT7A and LOVE it!! I have the non-RAID version. They're kind of quirky tho and I wouldn't recommend it to peeps who don't like messing around in the BIOS. A GaZillion settings in there! That MSI board is cheaper tho too.

The Boot up time is AWESOME! I had an Abit BF-6 and a MSI-6163 before, they were just slow in calculating the RAM. But this K7T Turbo zip thru my 192MB of RAM in just half a second! Then it just went on to IDE detection(which was extremely fast too compared to the Abit), and then boot. I am very happy with it right now.

But it's the stability that make this board a definite winner. So far the computer is doing well at 133mhz fsb.

Coca, if I go ahead and buy one do you get a cut?

i have the a7v133-raid, a7v133, and a7v. I had the abit kt7a133-raid but got rid of it.

Greg

Coca, who the hack is coca?

Anyway, if you wanna give me a cut, I have no problem with that That motherboard actually changed my view toward AMD/VIA, I used to have the AMD K6-2 w/ and MVP3 motherboard, nothing but headache installing it... but seems like the newer AMD/VIA are doing a good job. I just installed the 4-in-1 patch and that's it. No more AGP/IRQ routing problems.

BTW, I didn't get the one with Raid, I got the regular K7T Turbo and upgrade to the "overclocker" bios available at http://www.MSI.com.tw

Coco, coca, all from the same tree. Sorry 'bout that.

Abit is still listed in the recommended list of mobo's at AMD... so... huh?

hmm, wonder what went on?? They were NOT on there just a few days ago.

See this thread: http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum5/HTML/005702.html

on the kt-133 side i had an asus, returned it, abit, sold it and have the msi pro2a and have had 0 issues with it. set up without a hitch and boots very fast. i'm running an older t bird 650 @800 (which is the chip limit) in a dual me/2k boot and it takes about 20 seconds. my msi 6163 bx system takes about 2 mins, more when overclocked.

i like the msi products and i'd go with the turbo - msi also has a nice flash utility where you can do your bios from the web