time to upgrade

[Bello]

ive convinced myself to ditch my KT7a for a newer board that accepts DDR ram.  Ive been looking at one featuring the nforce chipset but i havent seen many available.  If anyone can reccomend a DDR mobo then please post it here.

Ta.

My config would contain:
Athlon 1.4
Geforce 3 ti 200
SB Live Player(unless it has good integrated audio)
Network card
blah blah blah

[Bello]

time to upgrade

[Kaanin]

The 1900+ I just built on an A7V266E has been running flawlessly this past week. While I'm a little biased toward Asus products, I must say this is the best VIA based board I've ever worked with. I had no hassles installing win2k and it's extremely stable both in gaming and general use. Another reason I chose this board is because it leaves enough room around the CPU socket for oversized heatsinks, like the Alpha PAL8045 and Swiftech MC462, both of which keep the 1.4GHz Athlon and 1800+ or higher nice a cool. The one downside is that it is significantly more expensive than your average KT266A motherboard, it runs around $160. One of the reasons for the high price is the onboard RAID controller and C-Media sound. I would have preferred getting one without the integrated sound, but I just couldn't find one in stock online.

If you don't want this particular board, VIAHardware gave the Soyo Dragon Plus and Abit KR7A-RAID excellent marks. Some of the community members may also recommend an equivalent MSI motherboard.

The reason I didn't list any motherboards featuring the NForce chipset is because it has yet to prove itself a formidable competitor in the market for Athlon platforms. Its performance leaves a bit to be desired, and it's a little too young to recommend. A KT266A or AMD760 based board would be a better choice.

Any of the above should work well for you, good luck with your project.    

[Mark Smith]

The biggest difference between all KT266A motherboards does not prove to be performance.  All of them seem to perform pretty much on par.  The thing to look for is features vs. price.  If you're looking for a fairly bare motherboard that will overclock like a demon, check out the Soltek or Epox boards.  If you're looking for something very feature rich, nothing compares to the Dragon Plus, which retails for about $40 less than the Asus and is outperforming it in every review.  Only problem was a minor quality control issue with the first boards released.  Recent releases seem to be pretty much problem free.