asus A7V266 or Asus A7V333 or possibly an epox mobo?

[Potatoe2]

I am making a jump off of the Pentium III band wagon and plunging into the realm of AMD xp. I want to go with an XP 1800+ CPU. I am the kind of guy who is forever tinkering with things so I will play with overclocking. It is inevitable. Suggestions guys. I here that Asus makes the most stable board. I also hear that epox makes the best for the money. What are your thoughts?

[Darthtanion]

I'm not an Asus fan, but that's a personal choice and not a professional one. So I guess I'd look at the EPoX board. I am currently using the EPoX 8KHA+ and am having a great time playing with it. It is extremely stable and I've had no problems at all.

But with the introduction of the KT333 chipset, you may want to take a look at these boards. Though they don't give stellar performance boosts over the older KT266A, many of them are using a newer revision Southbridge that offers a native support for ATA-133 hard drives. It's always good to prepare for the future. :)

[Potatoe2]

I am still researching the epox boards. I was about to buy the asus board when I read some favorable reviews about an epox board with the new kt333 chipset. I am very tempted to buy an epox board but the new A7V333 has built in USB 2.0 and supports the DDR 2700 RAM. Lots of choices out there. One conscern is that the A7V333 is new and the bugs have not yet been worked out. Nothing comes out of the gates with out a problem of some kind.
Anyway, these are my thoughs.:confused:

[Shepps]

Get a soltek (sl75 DRv5) board, or a soyo Dragon plus, they rule.

[Verne]

I am in the process of building a new PC and am going with the Asus A7V333. I think the Corsair XMS2700 512Mb 333Mhz Cas2 DDR ram is the best out there at the moment and have read favorable reviews on the mobo. The ATA 133 / UDMA 133 support is a big selling point as well. My only concern is that being a new product it might have problems.

I'll let you all know what I run into when I get it all together.

[Anonymous]

To be totally honest with you I havent given a thought to the Ram. I was under the impression that they were all the same. Hmm.
I did hear one thing about the A7v333 though. The Audio ports and other connections do not line up with case standards. You pretty much will have to cut your own openings to make the board fit. I read this somewhere in a review. I have seen pics of the board and I believe that the review is correct.
Still I think I will go with it too.

[Verne]

Yeah I read the same thing. You can get the mobo Manual at Asus.com. I read through it and the motherboard is set up slightly different. I am hoping asus will send the right plate with the motherboard. Only the bottom third of the plate is different where there are two extra usb ports and the sound is turned 1/4 turn than my case. I am not too worried about having to change it tho.

When you get your ram make sure you get CAS 2 not CAS 2.5 Also you'll probably want to get 333mhz since the board is compatable with the latest XMS2700 333mhz ram. From the reviews I've read Corsair is the best available in the way of ram.

[Potatoe2]

Hey verene; I noticed that you have listed two 80 mm enermax fans. I hear they are noisy. I bought two generic 80mm but dont have the mother board yet so i haven't tried them yet.
That reminds me, I thought that I could put my case together with powersupply and fans. Then I thought that I could plug power into the supply and get the fans going without a motherboard. No Go. They wont spin. I can only guess that the motherboard is required to send a control voltage to the powersupply, to control the fans. Am I right or is the powersupply DOA?

[Verne]

Potatoe2
I'm not sure, I've never tried to power up just fans. I'd think you could use a multimeter to test your power supply. Is there a power switch on the PS?? Maybe it was off.

As for the enermax fans, they have a variable speed switch to speed them up or slow them down. (1k 2k or 3k RMP) So far I've only installed one the back of the case. If I have cooling problems I'll cut a hole and install the other one in the side. I bought them because they were ball bearing construction and adjustable. They claim they're supposed to be quiet but I dont know yet because I'm still waiting on my motherboard and ram.

[FartyMcCrabLice]

I just bought a A7V333 and for your info they do now include the right plates for the mobo.

[TisMeDT]

I'm not sure, I've never tried to power up just fans. I'd think you could use a multimeter to test your power supply. Is there a power switch on the PS?? Maybe it was off.

You can power up the PSU with a jumper from pin 14 to pin 17. I have a picture but im having trouble posting it. As soon as get that figured out I'll post the pix

[TisMeDT]

I'll try again


Edit; Well that didnt work. A little help here please.