Colo's Website - Computer - Hardware - Mainboards

Whenever you buy a new mainboard you must make up your decision in two directions: What do you really need from that pool of goodies and gimmicks that modern boards must provide in order to be modern ;-) and how far (?) shall your system be upgradeable, first of all concerning the CPU you want to use. These questions that you must ask yourself principally refer to the chipset of the board.

Computers must be fast, so you look at those online-reviews or you spend a big lot of money into buying dozens of magazines every month to learn about this benchmark or another-one, and I tell you something: In most applications you wouldn't feel any difference betweeen a 'fast' board and a slower one... nowadays. Of course a benchmark is likely to show up the differences betweeen xxxx whetstones and xxxx+1 whetstones, but do you notice that difference while working in MS Word ?

The twelve chipsets in a short description

AMD 750: Let's remember the early times of socket A or even slot A, when the manufacturers hesitated weeks and months to develop boards for the new AMD... maybe they didn't believe in its success, maybe they were under a certain pressure by the market leader... There were no chipsets available for that new CPU, and only AMD itself could offer one: the legendary "Irongate" 750. It has always been very fast, but you shouldn't buy any board equiped with this chipset today - as far as I know there's only one left. For many features you can really use are not provided by the 750: AGP 4x, UATA/100, onboard sound. The 750 marked the beginning of a new aera, but its time is over.

VIA KT133: The first one specially designed for the T-Birds, offers a little more than the AMD 750, but in fact it's a dead-end: It doesn't support UATA/100 what means that the next (?) generation of harddisks could easily be 'too fast' for it, you have no chance to upgrade to a C-Athlon, for it doesn't support a FSB of 133 MHz. Forget it!

VIA KT133/686B: This one might be your choice if you are sure that you won't upgrade to a C-Athlon or DDR-RAM, but if you want to use the UATA/100 standard. Because of the combination with the newer 686B South, this chipset supports UATA/100. Here the game slowly starts to get interesting...

VIA KT133A: A very good chipset that offers everything except DDR-RAM support. You can run C-Athlons with it (FSB 133 MHz), but it's a pity: Just the C-Athlons are the only ones to show a significant jump in performance when used together with DDR-RAM! Nevertheless a good solution fot those who don't want to squeeze the last marks out of their Athlon-system...

ALi MAGiK 1: It supports the C-Athlons with 133 MHz FSB and DDR-RAM, but it is said to be the slowest of the 'modern' chipsets. On the other hand, most of the boards with the ALi MAGiK1 provide the possibility to run SDR-RAM or DDR-RAM; so if you don't want to throw away your 'old' modules it's doubtlessly worth buying it. In some reviews I have read about serious problems with its stability, in other reviews (the German c't i.e.) I read the contrary... Because I don't own a board equiped with the ALi MAGiK1, I can't judge it from experience. Maybe you should refer to the newsgroups to get more informations... but don't forget how many owners of an Asus A7V (with VIA-chipset!) complain about their boards not being stable under different circumstances...

AMD 760: Similar situation to the 750 - it's very fast, provides some newer standards like UATA/100, AGP 4x, DDR-RAM support and a 133 MHz FSB, but the Southbridge 766 - concerning the features - is a little modest. This is the reason why (as far as I know) the AMD 761 North is always combined with the VIA 686B South with its popular onboard sound i.e... One 'disadvantage' still remains: The 761 North doesn't support SDR-RAM anymore. If you are sure to run DDR-RAM from the beginning and if you've got a good soundcard somewhere in your cupboard left, you needn't hesitate to buy a AMD-based mainboard.

nVidia nForce 420: The impressive shooting star among the socket A-chipsets!

nVidia nForce 415: The impressive shooting star among the socket A-chipsets!

VIA KT266: It might be the winner: You can run on it every available socket A-CPU, it's got all features (and more ;-), and I think even the next generation of AMD-CPUs can be used on it without a significant loss of performance... yes, it might be the winner - if we didn't hear and read about performance problems that occur from time to time. But on the other hand the fastest board-CPU-RAM-combination you can buy for money today is said to be the MSI MS-6380 equiped with the KT266 in most applications... not a contradiction in my opinion, for it seems to me that the boards (and their BIOSes...) must 'only' be optimized. Then, it shall be the winner - until the birth of the next generation ;-)

VIA KT266A: A better successor of a good predecessor...

VIA KT333: A better successor of a good predecessor...

SiS 735: A new star is going to be born... I don't think that this chip is already available on the consumer market, but I have read about it: It seems to be good! Fast and stable and highly integrated (there is only one chip, so you find the North- and the Southbridge under one 'roof'). With its maximum three DIMM-slots, you must face the fact that boards with the SiS can't be equiped with the same amount of RAM as boards with its competitors. But it ought to be enough... ;-) We can really be looking forward to the first boards with this chip'set' - I've got the impression that it's really cute!

SiS 740: (is following soon!)

SiS 745: (is following soon!)

Conclusions

First, I'd like to present to you what I had written down as a conclusion a couple of months ago before the 'new' chipsets by nVidia (nForce 420), SiS (735/740/745) and VIA (KT266A) were shipped:

If you don't plan to upgrade your system 'from within', you might choose a mainboard with the VIA KT133A chipset. It offers to you the possibility to upgrade to a Athlon C-CPU - the question remains open if it's worth doing this without using DDR-RAM. You can connect modern harddisks, you get a lot of features, it's fast and not expensive. Only if you consider to upgrade always to the fastest possible (within the next twelve months ;-) you are likely to buy a DDR-RAM board.

If you want to be sure that you can stick onto your board whatever will be available as new and fast in the universe of AMD during the next twelve months, you must buy a board with the DDR-RAM-chipsets. After all, I've got the impression that the VIA KT266 (or possibly the new SiS 735...) might be the best choice - but wait a little until they will be mature and optimized... But be aware of the fact that the next socket XYZ is already waiting behind the curtain of the PC-theatre ;-)

Since then, things have changed... The much promising SiS 735 has surely kept its promise, but it has never been really accepted neither by the board manufacturers nor by the consumer market. The only board I know in real life equiped with this good chip is the ECS (Elitegroup) K7S5A - a fast board which is sold at a very low price, unfortuantely without any possibilities for enthusiastic users. At least, for a short period the SiS 735 was the fastest chipset for AMD-CPUs - but then the VIA KT266A appeared on stage... and finally nVidia's Crush... or nForce 420.

My remarks concerning the 'old' chipsets on the listing above I have left unchanged, but of course the former conclusions have become obsolete. Here are following the actual conclusions (january 2002):

If you are still running an 'old' Athlon or a Duron, you can still upgrade your system by installing a VIA KT133A-based mainboard. But in fact I can't recommend it, for a good number of KT266-boards is sold at an equal price and DDR-RAM is not much more expensive than SDR - it's time to jump on the next train!

If you want to build up a low cost-system with a good performance and you don't belong to the overclocker's community, the SiS 735 (in other words: the Elitegroup K7S5A) is still a good choice. But don't forget: Some KT266A boards only cost a few bucks more, and they are faster...

The overall best choice in my opinion is the VIA KT266A. Performance, stability, price - everything suits very well. You needn't buy an expensive Asus or Abit: Manufacturers like Soltek (SL-75DRV2) or Shuttle (AK35GTR) offer highend boards at moderate prices.

Can't I recommend the new nVidia nForce? Oh yes, I can! My respects to what nVidia has thrown to the market as their very first mainboard chipset. It's as fast as a KT266A and very integrated: If you are not a gamer and don't want to buy a VGA card, this chipset might be your choice. Unfortunately, boards with it are significantly more expensive than others, and so far, there are only two available.