hello guys,
i read until now, that for socket A and with creamware a lot of people seems to work very well with the following mobos: msi k7n420 pro, asus a7 m, gigabyte ga 7dx.
my new configuration will be with an amd xp 1700, and i will work with my Pulsar II in my home studio; so recording guitars, etc, probably using real time pulsar effects, and using P. synthesizers too.
so, which mobo to choose (yes i read all the threads concerning chipset test, suggested hardware, etc.) ?
some specifical questions raises up to my tired mind at the moment, but every general suggestion, or personal experience would make me happy.
ga 7dx: it s better to disable onboard audio? the bios works well?
msi k7n 420 pro (chipset nvidia): thi one has 10/100 base t ethernet integrated, as well as 2d graphic. I'll need net board, cause i will dedicate one pc only to audio, then link this one to the other pc. it's better to have this kind of card integrated, because it don't uses the pci bus, isn't it? as i will use a matrox 450 dual head should i disable (if possible) the graphic functions of the chipset- beacuse it lean on ram to work??
also in this case should i disable the onboard audio?.
here seems decisely that the bios is not the best thing of this board: no heat monitoring, no frequent updating from the manifacturer- am i wrong?
but also, seems that with this board some users can load a lot of masterverbs.. with wich configuration?
a7m. i know it's stable. maybe i should go for that way. i'm quite tired about asus politics right now, and this board cost a lot much more then the mentioned - and seems it's becoming a bit "old".. - am i too fashioned from the "new" stuff?
in the end i'm quite impressed actracted right now from the new microstar mounting the SIS 745: the msi 745 ultra.
i've seen a lot of benchmark with the precedent chip, the 735, showing that it was going great in general and in particular when using pci bandwidht. Here in planet z Sub said that he woul waited until some top quality board manufactor would mounted the following brother, the 745 to test it. in the technical reference of this board (msi 745) we can read that "the multi threaded architecture provides enough I/O bandwidht up to 1.2 gigab/se" --- is this a very very good bandw. isn't?
searched all around the web to find some benchmark related to this mobo, but, maybe i was unlucky -- or the board it's not distributed yet-- Would be so dangerous to buy before waiting some testing months??
ALOHA, ;;-)
every suggestion wellcome !
SOCKET A USERS
Your post is quite long maybe peeps got a tired mind reading it 
I am in a similar boat to you, but I would avoid via, and sis like the plaque. Just simply becuase of the problems with via I have had in the past. I am yet to be convinced by SiS either.
Intel is out of the question for you, and now for me as well.
It seems like Im stuck with my kt133a.
As I have no upgrade path.
Unless anyone knows of a good athlon xp board for pulsar that can use normal (not ddr ram)
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-03-28 06:24 ]</font>
I am in a similar boat to you, but I would avoid via, and sis like the plaque. Just simply becuase of the problems with via I have had in the past. I am yet to be convinced by SiS either.
Intel is out of the question for you, and now for me as well.
It seems like Im stuck with my kt133a.
As I have no upgrade path.
Unless anyone knows of a good athlon xp board for pulsar that can use normal (not ddr ram)
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-03-28 06:24 ]</font>
Well, actually, you can get an Asus tusl2-c and a Celatin 1000 (clocks to 1333 with no problemo and boxed fan) for less, than an AMD XP system would cost you. I guess, you will have less native powers, but it is just a cheap sugestion.
I went from ECS k7s5a (SiS735) and Duron800 to the above mentioned solution. And I tell you, you get more PCI power for Pulsar with that. Sub mentioned something about the PCI problem maybe being timing more than bandwith. I bought the k7s5a for the bandwith, but I did not get the performance I needed for Pulsar.
Immanuel
I went from ECS k7s5a (SiS735) and Duron800 to the above mentioned solution. And I tell you, you get more PCI power for Pulsar with that. Sub mentioned something about the PCI problem maybe being timing more than bandwith. I bought the k7s5a for the bandwith, but I did not get the performance I needed for Pulsar.
Immanuel
AMD is nice, best boards for Pulsar tend to have AMD761 North Bridge (but slow IDE transfers due to the underengineered VIA southbridge), I have the MSI K7N420 nForce motherboard and had horrible PCI results with it (one person said they got it working, but I never did so it's not a for sure thing it seems). I can make an ASUS A7M266 fly in my own hands, but I have failed to explain how to do this with one person, and this had lead me to stray even farther away from the AMD camp, as it just takes too much extra time to get it working when you can plug in an all Intel solution and get it working with minimum fuss out of the box. Anyway, good luck in your decision. If you're at all technical-oriented and patient, an AMD solution can be just as good. But I don't sell these solutions any longer due to P4's being the faster (2.4Ghz now), and MUCH better platforms (supporting chipsets).
Subhuman; don't suppose you have any old stock P3 motherboard and processors you want to sell me?
It would be much appreciated.
The thing is, I can get hold of a amd 761 board quite easily its the ddr memory it needs that puts me off. The really annoying thing is that 18 months ago I upgraded a PII 266 to PIII 800 and sold it! ARRRRGH.
Only to find that I want it back again.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-04-02 15:41 ]</font>
It would be much appreciated.
The thing is, I can get hold of a amd 761 board quite easily its the ddr memory it needs that puts me off. The really annoying thing is that 18 months ago I upgraded a PII 266 to PIII 800 and sold it! ARRRRGH.
Only to find that I want it back again.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: remixme on 2002-04-02 15:41 ]</font>