New mobo will be here Monday!

[mdzcpa]

Should have the KX7-Raid on Monday and have her put through the paces shortly thereafter. My Crucial PC2700 is waiting. Good stuff too. It hit 187mhz FSB on the KR7A with max aggressive timings and DDR voltage off 2.85v...not bad.

Looking forward to wringing out the KX7 (http://www.abit.com.tw/abitweb/webjsp/english/products.jsp) soon.

[Player0]

Monday eh? Mine was supposed to be here next week, but now PC Progress wont give me a date *grr* But I hope to get it soon :)

If you want to do a review on the main page, let me know and Ill set you up with an account :)

I have the same Crucial 2700...so I hope it can do 200fsb that I want. Or ill pick up some new 3000 :)

[mdzcpa]

I ordered the mobo through my local PC shop, and my guy there said he had his hands on a handful of KX7R mobos, and that they were being delivered from their OHIO location to this store on Monday. My name is supposed to be on one of them. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

If I do get my hands on the mobo quickly, and get it up and running smoothly, I see if I can take a shot at a review.

I'm embarrassed to say that my only concern is taking the fsb too high and losing my RAID 0. It's been so long since that mobo has had even a hiccup, I kind of forgot just how far I have it pushed already...Heh..Heh. I must admit that I've now managed to accumulate some files that needs backing up. I'll need to tend to that soon.

hmmm...seems my "test" Gaming rig has become reliable on me :eek: Ah well...that's just they way I like it I suppose:)

But it's time for a fresh install anyway.

I hope to keep things as stable with the new KX7-RAID as the KR7A-RAID has been.

Anyway, let me know when yours get's in too:)

[Player0]

I currently run my KR7A at a low 166mhz...which runs my PCI at 42mhz about. Everything runs absolutely fine, including my two WD1000JB drives in raid0 :)

Running the FSB at 200 with a PCI divider of 1/5th will give me a PCI bus of 40mhz, actually less. So I know my drives, videocard, pci devices will all work at 200fsb :) Im pretty sure the board and CPU will go that high. My only concern is the PC2700 of course.

[lechumbl]

Hi Mike,

That's one mighty fine mobo.
333?
With PC2700 and that board, you should be kicking some butt.

Good show, mon!!

Take care..........

[NorthernYankee]

Yeah but I was talking with Opp and he is having the same AGP tearings with his KX7 that I am having with my 8k3a...it seems that the KT333 chipset is not likeing FSB's in excess of 195ish. And also the GF4's seem to need to be dropped to 2x at FSB's in excess of 185-190.

--NY

[mdzcpa]

Player0:

Do you know at what point the 1/5 divider kicks in? I've heard the KX7 has the 1/5 divider but I have not seen any confirmed reports yet. I would be pleased if I could keep the PCI bus running closer to spec.

I don't run the KR7A at anything above 173 for extended periods for the same reasons of keeping everything intact. I usually start of each new test build by pushing everything as high as she'll go just to see. But I eventually back it all down to 24/7 settings for the long term.


lechumbl:
I hope to have a report by next weekend. I'll let you all know.


NY:

If what you say is true, I won't be getting rid of my KR7A anytime soon then. I'll give the KX7 a shot, and if it gives me trouble at very high FSB speeds, I'll just play with it for a while and sell it to my buddy. The only reason I would even consider a permanent move from the KR7A is to get the high FSB speeds. IMOHO the DDR333 support alone is not worth the upgrade. With the synchronous memory bus of the KT266A, increasing both the memory and CPU bandwidth together is really the ticket for better performance with the CPU bus stuck at 266mhz.

BUt I'll take a wait and see attitude about it. It seems the first batch of photos I've seen from users are showing the "CD" stepping of the KT333 on the KX7, and not the prefered "CE" stepping. If the mobo I get is the "CD", I may wait on things a while for the "CE" steppings to hit the streets.

[mdzcpa]

Did some more reading this morning....

NY, I can definitely see where you were getting your info from. Seems there very well might be a "chipset" issue out there. I've read reports from AT7, 8K3A, and A7V333 users re: the AGP tearing above the mid 190mhz FSB your speaking of.

Hmm...this would be unfortunate as that would be where the sweet spot for the chipset should be. If you can't get to that range reliably, I do not see much advantage over the KT266A as far as overclocking is concerned. But, that may be a little premature as this stuff is still too new.

And I wonder if the "CD" vs "CE" steppings are having an impact on this issue.

We'll stay tuned....

[Player0]

Hmm...KT333 bug eh? I hope it can be fixed by software, or that I get a later revision in my shipment. Ya know, I might be lucky that PC Progress ran out of stock from their first batch. That means i'll get a board from the second batch, and its more likely i'll get this later CE stepping maybe :)

As for being worth it? Nar...the KR7A is a great board, and Im not really trying to out do it. The upgrade to KX7 doesn't really cost me anything since I sold some older parts to pay for it. And since any mobo going in to the cube needs lots of work, I decided it might as well be the latest board.

As for the bug, well...I got some hopes on that.

1.) I get this CE revision you guys talk about.
2.) The bug doesn't show on my configuration.
3.) The waterchilled northbridge gives me more play.
4.) It can somehow be patched.

Frankily, I dont want to go too far out of spec. I wont go above 170 on the KR7A with the 1/4th dividor cause frankily its just not safe for raid. These WD drives seem to take much higher speeds than the old IBM drives, but....i really am not taking that chance. On the KX7, I can go all the way to 210mhz without worrying about HD corruption...which is good. But if I get limited to 190mhz by the Geforce or the RAM...thats still better than the KR7A...and im running PCI more in spec than I am now so it gives me better peace of mind.

So, me, Im not worried about this bug. The million dollar question though is, what about the other bugs? The PCI problems? Are these any better? Worse? I get 90+mbps out of my raid right now...I wonder if I could get 100 out of it on a different board.

As for 1/5th dividor, I think you can set it manually, so it kicks in whenever. But, I beleive 166mhz would be the normal spot.

[mdzcpa]

Player0:

The problem seems kind of vague at the moment with so few reports out there as of yet. But, even if it is the case, I agree with you that it may not be a big issue at all. Much like you, I prefer to keep my 24/7 settings to a sensible level. So I would beleive it wouldn't effect me in a day to day way.

In addition, if it only effects the extreme overclockers who are having the trouble, I wouldn't think VIA would consider it a bug, and throw too much resource at it. But who knows. I just don't think it will effect many users.

Bottom line I guess is that if the RAID 0 runs up there in the 190mhz with the 1/5 divisor, there's definitley some performance to be had.

Oh yeah, following a few threads at Icrontics re: the AGPx2 issue, it seems this has to do with the GF4 in general. There are some GF4 users needing to drop to AGPx2 at FSB above 175-180 on a number of platforms (KT266A, KT333, etc). It also seems to be an intermittent problem, so no telling whether it will even effect us.

Well, I'll check the shop Monday:)

[dicki]

did i hear you say a stable gaming rig? crazy idea... whatever will they think of next!

[Player0]

Next thing you know, theyll try to make the XBox stable!