Thinking about an MSI board...

[Handruin]

Does anyone have any thoughts about a good motherboard/CPU combination for the upcoming (and available I guess) DDR333? I was thinking about this MSI board, but from the looks of it, the board isn't available yet and neither is DDR333? Any thoughts, or should I sit tight until it matures?

Also, what RAM is good for this board, PC2700...is that what DDR333 is considered? I'm thinking about putting the XP 1800+ on it, but I havn't decided yet.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/KT3Ultra_aru.htm

-Doug

 

[LiamC]

PC1600 and PC2100 are JEDEC standards. People have been abusing the PC2700 "standard" which until last week wasn't defined.

PC2700 operates at 166MHz DDR (333MHz) frequencies. As the spec was only formalised last week, it will be a few months before official PC2700 becomes available - be very wary as the "PC2700" floating around now may work with mobo's that support the official standard, and they may not. You takes your chance.

Unless you really have a burning need for the speed, wait. Or settle for KT266A and PC2100, you aren't going to dropping a lot of performance ~ maybe a few percentage points.

 

[Mercutio]

Hey, that extra memory bandwidth makes a big, big difference for video encoding. Don't knock it too much. I got an additional 1.5fps for full-frame DVD to Divx (from 8 to 9.5) in jumping from SDRAM to PC2100 with the same 1.1GHz CPU.

 

[LiamC]

Mercutio, that's why I put "unless you have a burning need for the speed"

 

[Corvair]

If I'm not mistaken, isn't there a big fight going on about the IC packaging for DDR-333? If the world ends up going with the more advanced / more expensive BGA packaging, as all faster future DDR will definitely have, you may end up buying "oddball" DDR-333 DIMMs. I Also, I believe the DDR-333 RAM using the higher-end BGA packaging won't begin to arrive until mid-year (???). Apparently DDR-333 DIMMS built with the existing flat-pack IC packaging is right on the edge of operational stability. If true, that would be enough to give me the heebee jeebees.

 

[Handruin]

I'm not one to jump out and buy the newest product in the computer market, but I was under the impression DDR333 was closer to market then it sounds.

I can definitely go with a KT266A, but hasn't there been mention of problems when using all the ram slots, or is that a different setup. Is MSI's version of this board good, or was it Epox that everyone has been recommending?

This one?
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/detail_spec/K7T266pro2-RU.htm

Or this one?
http://www.epox.com/html/english/products/motherboard/ep-8kha.htm

I'd end up going with crucial for my memory, and buy a decent CPU cooler. I'm looking more for stability then for bleeding edge performance right now. The MSI board seems to get good reviews, but I thought people here or over at SR mentioned some issues with it...

 

[Handruin]

Looks like Crucial has DDR333 on the way... do you think this is gong to be oddball ram, or something to avoid? I've always had good luck with crucial...

http://www.hexus.net/scoopage.php?review=298

 

[CougTek]

The EPoX KT266A motherboard have problems with their implementation of the AGP slot. There are too tall capacitors around the slot and that makes it problematic to insert some graphic cards, like some of the latest GeForce 4 IIRC. Otherwise, the EPoX EP-8KHA is a very good board.

I don't especially like the Microstar KT266A models. I found them to be less stable than many other brands, like Soltek for instance and even the ECS K7VTA3 v.2.

I don't know much about the Crucial upcoming PC2700 modules. All I can say is that they would inspire me a lot more confidence is they would use tiny BGA instead of the regular IC packaging format they used in their PC2100 modules. The old format was fine up to PC2100, but the BGA are way better when it comes to heat dissipation. When I used to work on a production line, it was more problematic to put µ-BGA than other formats of devices because the soldering pads are very, very small and only the most recent printers (the machines that put the paste on the surface mount boards before the components are placed and then cooked in the oven) were able to do the job properly. The yield were quite a bit lower at first when we started to use µBGAs. I don't think Crucial as enough commitment to PC2700 memory to make all the efforts necessary to replace their TSOP current packaging.

 

[CougTek]

Indeed, the link you provided shows TSOP memories rather than µBGAs. Oh well, maybe they'll be reliable anyway, even if we'll have to use RAM-sink over them to prevent them to fry

 

[Clocker]

The EPoX KT266A motherboard have problems with their implementation of the AGP slot. There are too tall capacitors around the slot and that makes it problematic to insert some graphic cards, like some of the latest GeForce 4 IIRC. Otherwise, the EPoX EP-8KHA is a very good board.

I heard this condition varys with the revision of board you have. Just an FYI, new boards probably don't have this issue...

C

 

[Mercutio]

Personally I'd say that incompatibility with nvidia cards is a feature, not a problem.