Thinking upgrading motherboard to Nforce ASUS 266N-VM 220-D board from ECS K7S5A ?

[b5fan]

Hi,
Ive reading around for a cheap replacement for my ECS K7S5A motherboard.

Ive liked the Nforce motherboards when they was first released but was too expensive for me at the time about £100 when released.

Now i can get one for about £60 a Nforce ASUS 266N-VM 220-D
Ive read about the Onboard sound being very good and also its got dolby digital decoder in hardware too :)

Ive read 4 reviews and all have reviewed it very good and performance is better then what ive got now.

Ive got a Fortissmo 2 soundcard and was thinking has anyone got 1 of these motherboards and using the Onboard sound and is it as good as they make out in reviews as 1 shown it was 50% lower cpu usage then a SBlive :)

I love a nforce 2 motherboard but yet again they are £100 to £115 :( too expensive for me at mo.

Reason im looking at the Nforce based board is ;

1) they very good value at mo
2) offers better performance then what ive got now
3) I can use onboard sound and get quality sound instead £60
for a Audigy Soundcard
4) frees up a PCI slot and 1 less IRQ too use.
5) Comes with onboard Lan card if i want to network my pc to a
m8's

I like to get others views too before got 1 of these motherboards.
What i be running on it is ;

Athlon xp 1700
256 MB DDR PC2100
Prophet 3 TI 200 64MB

If anyone can provide 3dmark 2001 se and q3 timdemo 1 scores with simular specs (any geforce 3 ti 200 ) it be a great help

Thanks for any replys

[netviper13]

From what I've read in the reviews, the K7S5A is close enough in performance to the nForce that it wouldn't be worth buying a new mobo. I'd suggest waiting until prices drop on the nForce2, or you could pick yourself up at kt333 board for fairly cheap.

[Gator]

ECS K7S5A rocks... but your better off getting an Nforce2, or at the very least the MSI 745Ultra. It has the SIS745 chipset (the one just above the K7S5A's 735chipset), it supports DDR333, and it has more DDR slots, and a better bios. It's only about 10bucks more than the K7S5A anyway so you might as well. If something happen to my board right now and I didn't have much money, I'd definetly get the MSI 745Ultra ;)

[PsychoSy]

I've also been looking at replacing my K7S5A possibly in the next 6-8 months. The only board that's catching my fancy at the moment is the Nforce2 board by Chaintech but I'm waiting to see if ECS whips up an SiS-based solution for the new FSB Athlons.

Then again, if I'm waiting 6 to 8 months...might as well keep the K7S5A and until it's Hammer Time. :)

[netviper13]

The folks at OcWorkbench already have the specs for the next ECS board (not the integrated-graphics one linked on the main page here), and the theoretical specs look nice. I do know, however, that ECS has a reputation of having good spec boards which don't perform well and aren't adequately supported. Case in point: ECS K7S6A. The SiS 745 chipset is awesome as evidenced by the MSI version of it, but ECS has had very poor support as far as BIOSes go. You get what you pay for I guess.


*edit*

Here's the link to the product on ECS' website: http://www.ecs.com.tw/products/pd_spec.asp?product_id=237

And here's the post on OcWorkbench Forums: http://www.ocworkbench.com/ocwbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=37;t=003408

[poursoul]

Sorry it took so long for me to see this post. I think that i have the board you're talking about.

Believe me, the nforce performance is all you'll get w/ this board. There is no fsb settings, except for 100/133 and there is no voltage settings for anything (mem, proc, agp.)

your mobo is fine except for your freinds making fun of you for it :D until you can settle on a good deal for a KT400 or an nforce 2.

cheers and good luck :D

[SavagePaladin]

Originally posted by PsychoSy
I've also been looking at replacing my K7S5A possibly in the next 6-8 months. The only board that's catching my fancy at the moment is the Nforce2 board by Chaintech but I'm waiting to see if ECS whips up an SiS-based solution for the new FSB Athlons.

Then again, if I'm waiting 6 to 8 months...might as well keep the K7S5A and until it's Hammer Time. :)
Eeew. The Chaintech one doesn't use the APU.
eew eew.