[brickie]

hi, first i must say that price is on eof my main concerns....i know there may be faster and better boards, but i ned to know if anyone has experience with this one?link is below....it is at tigerdirect.com and i nned to know if it would be a decent option?it is ONLY for dvd playback...NOTHING else!!!!!!!!!!is the fact that it doesn't use a via chipset..lmk what you think..obviously price is right..

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...ku=MBM-TK7-700


thanks brickie

 

[jahesh]

Price is your main concern until you finish building the thing. Then the constant crashing becomes your main concern. Stay away from the Slot A Athlons, they scared loads of people away from an otherwise great processor. See what kind of deal you could get for something like the ECS K7S5A motherboard and a Duron processor, or maybe an Asus TUSL2 or a used CUSL2 with a fast Celeron or P3. It shouldn't cost you much more than the combo you mention, and you'll be glad you paid it. Just my 2¢.

 

[Jeffrey]

Outpost.com had the K7S5A with a Duron 1Ghz (retail, so with HS/F) processor for $89 + $6 shipping last week. I caught it the week before at $79, and just had to buy one to play around.

 

[boykster]

Just picked up a 1 gig duron and an ECS K7S5A board for $99 from outpost...IMHO a much better buy than the above combo....


socket a gives you a solid upgrade path...


Rich

 

[boykster]

doh...Jeffrey beat me to the punch...both on timing and price...


Rich

 

[brickie]

thanks for replies...i checked ot out and it looked good...only problem is when i did a search it said this board is very problematic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!any opinions...


brickie

 

[jahesh]

I've got 2 K7S5A's (neither in an HTPC, both office PCs), and they've been fast and stable. Definitely a better choice than ANY slot-A board you'll find, and impossible to beat for the money.


If you're becoming indifferent to the price, I'm *VERY* happy with my Soltek SL-75DRV4. It's a KT266A board, with virtually no cool features, but I can't crash the thing no matter how hard I try.


I'm nowhere near as happy with my MSI K7T266Pro2RU, also a KT266A board, but it's got piles of features for the money, including RAID and USB 2.0.

 

[Jeffrey]

I researched the K7S5A before buying. Forums are always full of people having problems with MBs, when it is one of the best selling MBs on the market. Big sales = more people having problems, but not necesarily at a higher rate than with other MBs. I don't think you are taking a big risk with the K7S5A, fwiw, ymmv.

 

[Jeffrey]

Here is a must-read thread if you are considering the K7S5A/Duron combo:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=132646

 

[jahesh]

I should probably have pointed out that some of the early revisions (I think 1.0) had problems with Palomino-cored Athlons (XPs), and the 1.1's initially had problems with Thoroughbred-core Athlons. From what I hear, the current revision works with both. I was aware of the issues when I bought mine, and I made sure to use a 1.1 for my 1.0 GHz Duron. No problems at all. Still, for a few dollars more, my personal money would be spent on a Soltek or Asus or Soyo or Epox board. Tom's Hardware and Anandtech both had comprehensive KT266A board reviews a couple of months back. I know that the KT333 is the most current VIA chipset, and it supports DDR2700, but I've heard that there are stability issues with certain revisions of the chipset, and that generally scares me away.

 

[Keh]

About 80% of the K7S5A problems are simply insufficient power (the board is demanding in this area); 15% is driver related.


Sound Blasters are touchy about sharing interrupts, slot switching usually solves.


PCI video cards are not a good idea.


The original (rev 1.0) boards are rated for Thunderbird/Spitfire cores only.


If you have SDRAM memory, this is a good 'extender'.