Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Advanced Micro Devices - Moderated (AMD) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Engel who wrote (61669)	11/2/2001 2:03:34 AM
From: peter_luc	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Paul, "Maybe He was RIGHT - if system stability is considered a "value item"." Okay, let's put the stability question to rest. Why not give Anand the last word? He is always very balanced and I trust his words: See anandtech.com "Athlon XP Platforms: High performing and maturing You are blessed to be building an Athlon XP system today simply because of the plethora of platform options you have at your fingertips. Motherboards are cheaper than ever, and the performance of the Athlon line has increased over 10% just because of advancements in chipsets. At the forefront of the Socket-A chipset market we have VIA whose KT266A is finally starting to appear on motherboards in the channel. For this review we tested with the first final KT266A motherboard we have been able to get our hands on: the EPoX EP-8KHA+. The board performed just fine and was actually on par with the KT266A reference board we previewed not too long ago. We ran into a few problems with the board not POSTing after changing CPUs without resetting the BIOS but luckily no major issues that couldn't be fixed with a BIOS update. (...) While the current batch of Socket-A motherboards are not nearly as flawless (in regards to overall stability/quality) as the i845 boards we rounded up not too long ago, they are approaching maturity as time goes on. Especially with the incredible effort NVIDIA is putting into drivers for their nForce platform, we may see things improve dramatically for the platform in the next few months." Of course, I do not like the last paragraph. And it is against Anand's own findings when he tested several KT133A boards, like the ASUS A7V133. I had bought this board just because Anand had reported that it was running perfectly even during the *extended" stress test. The ordinary stress test went for 24 hours but since several new KT133A boards didn't have ANY look-ups Anand decided to prolong the stress test to 48 hours. And the ASUS A7V133A did fine there with no look-ups as well. Two others KT133A boards showed the same perfect stability during the extended stress test, IIRC. Therefore they were at least on par with the very best boards with Intel chipsets. So it seems that today the KT266A boards have to reach the same level of stability and maturity that the KT133A boards already had reached one year ago. Let's see what ASUS, IWill and ABIT are going to bring to the table. Until then, you do have a point. But it is unfair to call it a flaw of the Athlon, as you suggest. After all, it is only a rather minor flaw that Anand mentions for the EPoX EP-8KHA+ (not POSTing after changing CPUs without resetting the BIOS). Peter