VIA KT333 boards post feedback

[pmistry 0]

Hey if you have a VIA KT333 board post some information here about stability, performance, compatibility with GF4 boards if you have one, Windows XP performance, etc.

 

I am interested in hearing about these boards mostly but if you have a different one let me know.

 

Asus A7V333 /w RAID

MSI KT3 Ultra ARU

ECS K7VTA3 v3.x

Epox EP-8K3A+

Abit KX7-333 RAID

Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra

I am leaning towards the MSI board.

[Brian Frank 0]

I had the Epox board, and it died after a couple weeks. I'd have gotten a replacement, but I was down to 1 PC (my file server with a crappy screen) and I didn't have time to wait for the replacement from Newegg. Disregarding that, it was a very fast board.

[CyberGenX 0]

I got the MSI KT333 Ultra, works fantastic, hasn't crashed once.

[Preacher 0]

Well, I too had planned to upgrade to an Asus A7V333 and Athlon XP 2200+. With the knowledge I have now, I won´t do this. The reason is the VIA 8233A Southbridge. At default configuration, you don´t have any data corruption but your harddisks transfer data slower as with any other chipset (talking about 33% drop in transfer speed). If you try to fix it by applying several netwide available patches (OS drivers, BIOS hacks, ...) your drives become as fast as with other chipsets again, but you will experience data corruption.

 

However, the VIA 8235 southbridge which will be out later this year is supposed to fix this issue. I´ll wait and see. Good things come to those who wait.

 

For full details on the issue, visit www.tecchannel.de , which is (you probably guessed it) a german site.

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

I also have the A7V333 and the only gripe I have about it is where the floppy connector is (I have a full tower case). It does make my processor run a bit hotter than normal though, but that could be due to the vcore settings (to lazy to change it form jumperless).

 

 

Quote:

At default configuration, you don´t have any data corruption but your harddisks transfer data slower as with any other chipset (talking about 33% drop in transfer speed).

 

I had an increase in speed over a ATA 100 RAID card. It was not fantastic, as we all know that ata133 doesnt make a HUGE difference, but there was still an increase.

 

 

I should also mention that this board is extremely stable. Havent had a problem with it yet. I dont know if it was a worthy upgrade from my asus A7M-266, but that little fellow decided to stop working.

 

I would recommend either the ASUS or the MSI. Epox is great too, but I cant really speak from experience. I have seen reviews where the Soyo is a bit slower than any of the boards (Epox led the way), I cant find the link though for some reason.

 

The asus has the most features though, the little things really please me, like EZ Flash, hit alt-f2 on boot, and there is a flash utility. COP and Q-Fan are also cool.

USB 2 and firewire as well.

[Preacher 0]

It´s not the speed decrease by going back from ATA133 to ATA100, it is the speed decrease caused by the southbridge. If you have an ATA100 device on an ATA100 controller which is powered by, say an intel chipset, everything is fine, you get about 97megs/s burst speed. Same thing again, but with a VIA southbridge, you only get about 65megs/s burst speed.

[Akhena 0]

Have the MSI KT333, with an Geforce 2 Titanium, Windows XP, 512Mb DDR PC2100, and until now, got no problem at all.

The computer runs a Web server, burns CD, and I use it for playing sometimes(computer on for about 18 hours per day, without no reboot).

This motherboad rocks!

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

Quote:

It´s not the speed decrease by going back from ATA133 to ATA100, it is the speed decrease caused by the southbridge. If you have an ATA100 device on an ATA100 controller which is powered by, say an intel chipset, everything is fine, you get about 97megs/s burst speed. Same thing again, but with a VIA southbridge, you only get about 65megs/s burst speed.

Ahhh, I thought you meant that this board stinks compared to previous versions.

So its always been a problem with VIA?

[ThC 129 0]

yes, it is well known that VIA can't make a south bridge that has decent data transfer rates. This was a big problem on the KT133a, and it seems to come back up and bit VIA in the arse again. As much as I like AMD boards and Processors, if the only choice i have for a southbridge is VIA then hell with that. AMD needs to make full chipset boards, north and southbridge. VIA has proven time and time again they can't make a stable processor, or motherboard.

[clutch 1]

Quote:

yes, it is well known that VIA can't make a south bridge that has decent data transfer rates. This was a big problem on the KT133a, and it seems to come back up and bit VIA in the arse again. As much as I like AMD boards and Processors, if the only choice i have for a southbridge is VIA then hell with that. AMD needs to make full chipset boards, north and southbridge. VIA has proven time and time again they can't make a stable processor, or motherboard.

Amen brutha, testify! I dig the AMD CPUs, I am just leary of the mobos they run on. Now it's just a matter of time before nVidia gets the time under its belt to make a fast, solid board.

[Preacher 0]

Are there any boards with SiS or nVidia North- and Southbridges with 5 PCIs and an onboard RAID controller?

[mad2moons 0]

MSI KT3 Ultra ARU, have problems with BSOD under xp pro, only randomly, not all the time, it wont even accept a 3rd stick of ddr wish i hadnt sold my msi kt7266a board now

 

MSI KT3 Ultra ARU

AMD xp 2000+

512MB DDR 2700

SB Audigy

Leadtek gf3 64mb

asuscom isdn card

sony 12x DVD

plexwriter 40x12x40a

xp pro, patched uptodate

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

Quote:

it wont even accept a 3rd stick of ddr

It should but it wont run at 333 MHz, it will be clocked down to 266MHz if three slots are used.

[Faber38 0]

hi..

sorry for my english..

 

i have the A7V333 with 1900+ AMD and GF2 V7700 GTS and no problems..

but my Volt is to high..13.2V..and i can´t reduce this...

i mean that i must buy a new Trafo..(Trafo is this the correct Word?)

[Preacher 0]

@ Faber38

 

Wirf mal ´nen Blick ins Forum von www.amdmb.com. Dort werden alle möglichen Probleme über alle AMD Prozessortauglichen Mainboards diskutiert. Ich denke, daß bei Dir der undokumentierte Überspannungsjumper gesetzt ist.

 

Wenn Du mit "Trafo" "Netzteil" meinst, wäre das "Power Supply Unit" oder kurz "PSU"

 

 

 

Take a look at www.amdmb.com's forum . All possible problems with AMD compatible mainboards are discussed there. I think that in your case the undocumented jumper for overvoltage might be set.

[Brian Frank 0]

Quote:

Are there any boards with SiS or nVidia North- and Southbridges with 5 PCIs and an onboard RAID controller?

Yes. For nVidia, there's the Abit NV7-133R, based on the nForce 415 chipset. The 415 lacks the integrated video, and the board uses the HighPoint HPT372 ATA133 RAID controller. I have this board and love it.

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

Quote:

Take a look at www.amdmb.com's forum . All possible problems with AMD compatible mainboards are discussed there. I think that in your case the undocumented jumper for overvoltage might be set.

I have the same problem, my -12V is around -13.5 V. The pin is not set, it comes disabled by default.

[CrazyKillerMan 0]

Well, after spending some serious time reading some forums all you a7v333 owners may want to see this:

USB 2.0 slowing down raid 0

 

Also as far as the rotten rail voltages that I am getting:

Check out this forum

 

Quote:

ASUS Probe Has detection error- that's the problem.

 

Heh...I have had problems with probe, but I use MBM 5, and my -12 is about -13.1

 

As far as my high temperatures go, I think im gonna try to lap my HSF (Dragon Orb 3) before I get another one that does a better job.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

yes, it is well known that VIA can't make a south bridge that has decent data transfer rates. This was a big problem on the KT133a, and it seems to come back up and bit VIA in the arse again. As much as I like AMD boards and Processors, if the only choice i have for a southbridge is VIA then hell with that. AMD needs to make full chipset boards, north and southbridge. VIA has proven time and time again they can't make a stable processor, or motherboard.

AMD do have a South Bridge chip that mates with the 761 North Bridge (the Viper IIRC) but apparently it was too expensive to integrate on a large scale so board manufacturers substituted the 686b instead. Dual AMD motherboards typically have full AMD chipsets (at least I haven't come across one yet that doesn't) so we can all be thankful Via haven't got their fingers in that pie (yet).

[sapiens74 0]

Therein lies the problem.

 

Cost.

 

 

Via are cheap bastards

[Admiral LSD 0]

Cheap and nasty

[sapiens74 0]

was trying to be nice....

 

so I stopped at cheap

[Preacher 0]

Is the nForce 415 really a good chipset? Does it not have errors of some sort? There´s got to be something, noone makes flawless products these days

[Admiral LSD 0]

I heard the nForce had some issues with it's memory controller (certain memory banks couldn't be filled or something) but nVidia may have fixed that by now.

 

What I'd like to see is a dual Athlon chipset that features the nForces dual DDR channel system (assuming it works properly ). I'm willing to bet that that'll provide the Athlon MP the boost it needs to completely blow the new Xeons out of the water (they're pretty much neck and neck atm if Anandtech's benchmarks are anything to go by).

[sapiens74 0]

Reliability......

 

who cares about benchmarks.

 

Little nickle and dime operations maybe....

 

You put Xeons when you have to have servers up

 

Athlons when you can afford to rebuild one, from time to time.