Searching VIA KM400 chipset review

[CougTek]

I remember that this chipset stinks, but I don't remember exactly how much. I'm considering it (although not very seriously) for an extremely budget box where the focus will be placed on the CPU and few things else (guess why?).

I don't care for the onboard crappy graphic lame performances and output quality. I only care how much it hinders the performances of the processor and also a bit by the overall desktop performance (in the event that it ever has an after-FAH life or that I sell it).

I've just sold one of my former FAH-box and therefore, there's only two left (two most powerful though). I shouldn't upgrade the few spare parts I have here and there into a full system yet (not much money), but hey, it's Christmas and I'm in the mood of buying things (even if I should wait).

 

[Mercutio]

I've built a couple systems around the Biostar M7VIQ. They're not very exciting boards but they do the job well enough in lowest-end budget machines.

 

[CougTek]

Ok, thanks for the short feedback. I have given up to find a decent review on any board sporting that cheapset. Another thing I've decided is to hold off my purchase until I have enough cash to buy something that won't make me vomit everytime I'll look at it.

Oh and one last thing Merc :

• [list:d3f5a44ca7][list:d3f5a44ca7]SONY!

[/list:u:d3f5a44ca7][/list:u:d3f5a44ca7]

 

[Mercutio]

It was subjectively identical to working with a KT400a or KT600, only without all the PCI slots. It didn't seem slower or worse for having integrated graphics, other than the objectionable use of system RAM for video.

And people who live in glass houses shouldn't be Canadian.

 

[Tannin]

You're right, computer generated one.

No, no - not about the XP thing vs 2000, I mean about the strain getting to me.

I don't think I can stand being monophrenic for very much longer.

Stupid ape. I miss her.

 

[Tannin]

Gahh!

I give up.

First I have the wrong decade, now I have the wrong thread.

Shall I cross-post it over to the correct discussion? Might as well, I guess.


While I'm at it, I might as well deliver my thoughts on the KM-400.

In a word, it seems like a classic VIA integrated chipset of the classic kind: i.e., more-or-less functional but basicly crappy. We have been pretty much forced to switch to them since the ASUS Nforce 1 boards gave out. We are using ... er ... some brand I never heard of before and can't remember at the moment. We have had one or two fail, no thorny compatibility problems to speak of. They hate any sort of RAM they don't like, Lord only knows why.

I don't like them, but there doesn't seem to be anything else.

This is a shame as for some reason I don't understand, we are still paying quite a lot for entry-level video cards (Gforce 4 MX things which are probably SEs and sluggish but at least totally fuss-free and as utterly reliable as all other Nvidia video products.)

(Are you listening Mercutio?)

So for our mainstream I'd far rather be selling more of the reasonably-priced and excellently stable Albatron KT-600 board or its Gigabyte equivalent, coupled with a cheap and solid little video card: an old TNT M-64 would nearly do it - anything just a smidge faster than that would be perfect. But the reality is that it costs the same to buy a KT-600 or a KM-400, and with the KT-600 you have to spend an extra $100 (just under) to buy a video card. That translates to a >10% price premium for the system, and for entry-level buyers, that's hard to justify

Result: we are selling more KM-400s than I like to. I don't mind carrying them, but I don't like to see them taking away customers who should be buying real computers.

Coug: buy a KT-600 and put an old 8MB S3 Trio or something of that nature into it. For folding, it will be just fine.

 

[Mercutio]

Sorry, O Weilder of the Sock Puppets, my experience has shown me otherwise. They get too hot, have uniformly criminal 2D output and fail at a rate in excess of any rate I might find reasonable. That's neither perfectly serviceable nor fuss free. Quite a lot of fuss, actually.

 

[timwhit]

Sorry, O Weilder of the Sock Puppets, my experience has shown me otherwise. They get too hot, have uniformly criminal 2D output and fail at a rate in excess of any rate I might find reasonable. That's neither perfectly serviceable nor fuss free. Quite a lot of fuss, actually.

I can't comment on failure rates, but I can comment on the fact that until recently ATI drivers were extremely crappy.

nVidia's unified drivers have installed flawlessly for several years now, while ATI's drivers took a magician to get to work. When I switched from a Geforce 2 to my present ATI Radeon 7000 it took me something like 4 hours to get the ATI drivers to load correctly and work. This was awhile ago and I haven't had to install ATI's drivers lately because I have been lucky enough to have been using the same install of Win2k for the last 2 years or so.

 

[Mercutio]

ATI's drivers have, in the time I've been buying ATI hardware - about two years - been acceptable to very good. The Radeon family is also a unified driver and always has been, and besides, I'd rather have good hardware with crappy drivers than hardware that's bad to begin with.