My Next Motherboard?

**Andrew Pratt** · 03 October 2001, 16:27 Wednesday

looks "red" hot

Sounds like its a very nice board. I had an MSI board before my current Abit and I really liked it

**Bing Fung** · 03 October 2001, 18:58 Wednesday

Hey Jon, I don't have a lot of experiance with MSI boards, however I hear a lot of folks like them over the usual Abit, Asus options. It looks to be a nice board and those overclocked bench marks are impressive to say the least. I don't know what the reviewer has against AMI BIOS's but I rather like them more than the others. Regardless, that MB will scream :E

It also has nice features like the built in RAID controller, and thoughtfull placement of the caps around the CPU Socket. It looks very well built and ya gotta love that red PCB as well

You may want to get the Audigy, I say this just because I know how you like to play technically with audio. The Audigy has linked the EMU 10K2 "processor to digital-analog and analog-digital converters (DAC & ADC) able to create 24-bit samples at 96 KHz. In practice, it is possible to process the sound in real time using the card in 24 bits at 48KHz. Previously, these specifications had been solely the province of professional soundcards."

It also has a IEEE 1394 Firewire port on the Live Drive break out box.

The only thing left to wonder is hopefully the new EMU 10K processor is much more compatabile with Via's 686 south bridge, though the MSI does use the built in 8233 sound chip instead.

Bing

**Trevor Schell** · 03 October 2001, 19:01 Wednesday

Any one actually tried out an Audigy? Otherwise, I'm leaning towards a Hercules Game Theater XP- I really like their outboard box.

Not yet , but I just seen one at Staples the other day for only $10 more than the previous SoundBlaster boards. I just may jump on it.
I agree on the Hercules outboard box..Nice looking anyways.

Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

**SiliGoose** · 03 October 2001, 21:25 Wednesday

Jon,

You know you can use your Radeon with the nForce mobo.

I have the GameTheater XP and love it. The breakout box is tremendous and it performs better than I ever could have expected. The only negative is that there are currently no drivers for WinXP (ironic, as they share "XP"). That ought to change soon though.

There is a new version of the GameTheater due before Christmas. I don't remember the specifics but it is intended to compete with the Audigy.

-Sili

**JonMarsh** · 05 October 2001, 09:24 Friday

Well, if there's a new one by Xmas coming out, I suppose I could drop one of my "extra" SB Platinum's in this system, and just wait. Though Bing's point about the 24/96 DAC's is well taken, something I've heard before, and truthfully, the main reason I'm interested in the Audigy at all.

But I like the Hercules break out box a lot more than the live drive tray- but I understand the new premium Audigy goes that way. This will almost certainly be another WIN2K box, because I don't like the idea of WPA'ing all my systems at home. It's bad enough I own one copy of every Microsoft operating system since Windows 3.1 (yes, NT 3.1, 3.5, 4, etc), but for a "work" workstation, I don't see a compelling reason to go with XP instead of 2000, excepting the internet firewall feature- which I'll have to check out. I've played with XP on a couple of systems, and have it on one hard disk which my duaghter is currently using; I'll get it for her, and proabably my next laptop will have it.

Decisions, decisions!

-Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**JonMarsh** · 01 November 2001, 10:36 Thursday

Well, we've been busy in the computer factory at Casa de Marsh.

The primary desktop has been re-configured; the new flaming red KT266A wonder from MSI is resident in my tried and trusty Addtronics tower. The MSI KT266 Pro-RU includes USB 2.0 as well as 1.1, and has an ATA-100 RAID controller built in, in addition to standard high speed IDE.

My daughter has a new hand-me-down in her Antec case, with an ASUS A7V and 750 MHz Athlon CPU, plus a brand new Radeon video board, Plextor burner and Panasonic DVD ROM. On top of that, she has an OEM copy of XP, tweaked up for her a bit, and it looks pretty lucious on the old 21" Toshiba Monitor that's been in her system the last couple of years. She's pretty pleased about how this has turned out, and really likes the interface and music and graphics friendly features of XP. Everything has run smoothly for the install; even the printer was just plug it in, and the driver installs itself. (BTW, there's an option to copy ALL files over during the install; I highly recommend taking that route.) The animated XP tour is pretty decent and makes coming up to speed on the new features a breeze.

It's arguable that part of the XP "experience" is a highly focussed effort to make "computing for dummies" much easier, but there are a host of small features and some larger ones that make staying on top of things and getting things done easier.

For my desktop upgrade I cheezed out and picked up the cheapest CPU in stock at Central Computer- so it's running with a "bargain basement" 1.33 GHz XP Athlon, which they call an XP1500, as it's supposedly equivalent in performance to what a Thunderbird series chip would do at 1.5 GHz.

XP Pro is running on this system, with a variety of options tuned to make it look and behave more like WIN2K than XP. However, some of the features, like tiles views, are genuinely useful for someone who does desktop publishing and engineering work and a lot of graphics.

So far almost everything has installed with out glitches, including things like a Firewire card, my PCMCIA Flash card USB reader, and Sony burner. The only software glitch encountered was applyting the 2nd service pack for Ventura Publisher; it can't seem to find the program because of some differences in registry entries.

To install a printer, just plug it in; the rest is automatic. You can install printer drivers manually, which is required to add a postscript printer prior to installing Acrobat.

A significant plus on both systems is the new Cleartype option for display, which uses a new, improved font anti-aliasing. Though nominally developed for LCD displays, it also makes text smooother and cleaner on CRT based displays. The old Truetype font smoothing is pretty klugy; the font smoothing in Adobe Type Manger is considerably better; the font smoothing in Cleartype is better still, and definitely the best. Again, another plus for the desktop publishing types and engineering graphics.

Performance is peppy, but then it should be, with a 1.33 GHz Athlon XP CPU, and 512 MB of DDR Ram on a KT266A based MB. Note that some benchmarks show single CPU systems running XP at 27% slower than WIN2K on the same hardware. Oddly, XP is faster with dual CPU's than WIN2K.

One thing XP handles better is drive letter numbering, particularly for temp plug ins; when I plugged in my old HD temporarily on an IDE cable, it numbered all the new HD partitions AFTER my three CD/DVD/CDR drives and two removable disk drives.

Regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Bing Fung** · 05 November 2001, 22:47 Monday

Very Nice Jon! Glad to hear that it's running smooth.

The Athlon 1500+ XP it the sweet point of bang for buck, so there is no cheapin out there, just well executed plans :W

I sure like Windows XP. One of my favorite features is the CCF memory card management. I just take photos with my digital camera, remove the card, plug it into the CCF card reader. XP launches the required Application to view the images or will sort and rename all the photos from the generic DSCN0001 to the named/folder of your choice. The XP picture viewer, Su-weet!!

Actually I quite like the look and feel of the Luna interface as well.

Well they just annouced the Abit KR7-R today, I have been waiting for that one since summer. I will have my eyes on that one and hope to read some benches soon.

Bing

**JonMarsh** · 06 November 2001, 10:45 Tuesday

Yes, your very right about the convenience of the way XP handles the memory card reader, but with the new features in Autorun, that extends to pretty much any removable media- whether it's my PCMCIA card from my Sony camera, or my Fujitsu magneto optical drive. When you're working on publication oriented projects, that plus the tile based views come in real handy at keeping organized and shuffling things around smoother. I'm working on a magazine article with multiple folders for different graphics and test data, and I'm finding it rather annoying when I have to go back to working on a more plain vanilla system.

So far the rebuilt system is running like a dream with the new MB and OS. Not a single glitch, no driver issues, etc., other than Microsoft not having a USB 2.0 driver out yet (this MB has I/O for both USB 1.1 and 2.0).

I'm building a new system for my ladyfriend soon, so we've picked up another MSI MB, and most of the rest will come out of my odds and ends box (she's English, and like the thought of a "frugal" approach to constructing her system- you know, a slightly used ELSAL Gladiac GeForce II (only used a couple of weeks before being replaced with a Radeon), an IBM 14GB drive from my backup stash, a Philips Acoustic Edge sound card purchased on sale, a great deal on a Sony 16X DVD rom mail order ($65).

Now we just have to pick out a case she likes the looks of- though she's had Apples before, I don't think she's going to go with one of those aquamarine colored wonders you can find these days for PC's.

Well, I saw some benches of KT266A boards this week, and my MSI trailed the others somewhat with the default settings- but it's still a pretty smokin' system with the 1500+XP CPU, and what's even more surprising, it boots and shuts down about twice as fast as WIN2K did in the last incarnation of my desktop. It's not the just the CPU, either, because my daughter's system, using that, is fairly quick to start up also.

I saved my "legacy" XP theme, and now I'm playing with the silver version of the luna interface. We'll see how that feels- the blue was just too much for me!

Soon there should be some good benches between the new Asus, Abit, and other KT-266A designs. Then you'll be in a position to execute on your plans.

'Course, since I'm running the Pro version of XP, I figure I should have just planned on swapping my "new" current system over to my girlfriend in a few weeks, or whenever I could get a dual CPU Athlon setup. But the MB's are pricey, and you know, this single CPU setup works pretty dang nice.

Best regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

**Bing Fung** · 06 November 2001, 19:09 Tuesday

Oh Yeah, had to remind me of the Dual CPU option didn't ya :W

The KR7-R may have to wait until I see more Dual MB's than the Tyan Tiger :B Thanks a lot Jon :W

How lucky you are to build another so soon, I have to admit, it's addicting like crack!

Bing

**JonMarsh** · 06 November 2001, 23:53 Tuesday

Oh, Bing, you tell it like it is! Addicting indeed. If I go to heaven when I die, I presume I'll mostly be building new PC's and speakers all the time, right?

You don't think so? :E

Maybe that's why I probably won't be going to heaven. Well, I gues that means I'll just have to build more computers and speakers and amps and whatever while I'm here!

Yeah, I keep hearing on "The Register" and "The Inquirer" that lower cost high performance dual CPU Athlon MB's are just around the corner. We'll see. Heck, I can remember when I was lusting after a four way Pentium system years and years ago- a 600 MHz Athlon would probably trash it. But I think dual Athlon MP's at 1.2 GHz would make me or you pretty happy for some time, don't you think? I bet the redraws would be real, REAL fast in AutoCAD!

Regards,

Jon

Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

My Next Motherboard?

My Next Motherboard?

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