KT400 chipset / AGP8x needed

[E^vol]

I'm looking for a new KT400 chipset / AGP8x mainboard. I know I'm impatient, but I have a buyer for my current system, if I can part with it soon. However, I would like to buy a mobo with AGP8x, so that I won't have to buy another one in 6 months when I upgrade to an ATI 9700 or NV30. I'm trying to plan ahead... I've read about the MSI KT4 Ultra and IWILL KK400 mobos. Does anyone know of other mobos in this catagory ? Onboard audio would not be used, extra features are welcome, but mainly I'm looking for something stable !
Any help would be appreciated, Thanks...

[Wiggo]

Ya found ya customer too early then. :D

[E^vol]

GigaByte GA7-VAXP,
MSI KT4 Ultra,
Iwill KK400,

OK, in your opinions, which of these would be better ? for speed, features, stablity ? (looking at the different companies track records)

Does anyone know of any other Via KT400 chipset mainboards that are coming out soon ?

thx,

[Wiggo]

Don't really know as we're all waiting to see a few good reviews around of each one. ;)
<center>:cheers:</center>

[E^vol]

sorry, what i meant was, which company do you "trust" more ?

[Wiggo]

I'd say that I'd trust in my personal order would be,
1/ MSI
2/ Gigabyte
3/ Iwill

The only thing is what are ya goin' to do with all that wasted memory bandwidth if ya can't use it? :?:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[E^vol]

thx Wiggo..
i was leaning towards the MSI board...as MSI boards are widely available here, for a damn good price too !

[Wiggo]

Well I pick EPoX boards here for that reason. ;)

[E^vol]

kinda helps, doesn't it....:D

[Ren]

Have you considered nForce 2 boards instead of KT400?

They also got AGP 8x and DDR400 support, most likely S-ATA and also dual NICs.

There are 2 main flavours, with on-board video (GF 4 MX) and with-out.

Which is better, KT400 or nForce 2, well I don't know and I don't think anyone does, since they're not out yet.

nForce 2 boards are due in mid-September, which is still over a month away :(

[Wiggo]

For the price of those boards here, unless the Athlon gets a 166MHz FSB, all that memory bandwidth will just go to waste IMHO. : peace2:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[E^vol]

Ya, I've thought about the nForce2 boards, but I will be using my SBLive! until I buy a SB Audigy Platinum, and I'll be using my Radeon 7500 until I buy an ATI 9700 or NV30 (for Doom 3) ! I already have an ethernet card for my cable modem, and I'll be using my IDE hard drives for a while, so as far as I can see, there's no reason to spend the extra $$$ for the nForce2 board.
Wiggo, it's not really for the extra memory bandwidth, it's for the AGP8x...(aka:future upgrades), but I understand what you mean though.

[Wiggo]

In real world figures 8x AGP adds very little in the way of performance over 4x AGP atm. :smokin:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[E^vol]

ya, "at the moment" ......i'm trying to "plan ahead", we'll see if it works out that way.

[Ehhe Yebeb]

In real world figures 8x AGP adds very little in the way of performance over 4x AGP atm. :smokin:
<center>:cheers:</center>

Yep. I saw a review of the Xabre 400 where they tested it on an AGP8x board in 8x mode and 4x mode and there was about 3FPS dif.