Hello folks, I've been reading and researching, and it appears to me that it may not be such a bad idea to buy a DDR motherboard for my next Athlon Thunderbird. PC2100 RAM isn't that expensive these days, and the memory bandwidth advantage over SDRAM is quite appealing.
So whats it gonna be? A KT133a Chipset, or one of those new DDR motherboards that I am so unfamiliar with?

I think that if you are building a new system today, you should invest the money into DDR. But is it really worth the upgrade now?--No. DDR RAM is cheap, the mobo is relativly expensive compared to SDRAM boards. I really don't think the cost is worth it for upgrading.

I'm going to wait for the new AMD chip to be realeased--then we'll talk about upgrading...

I have found a very valuable resource in determining an answer to this question:

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1448&p=1

Also, I agree with you Mr. Massacre. You stated above that you were "...going to wait for the new AMD chip to be realeased--then we'll talk about upgrading..." I have read that AMD will be releasing a new 760 chipset, I would guess that the new chipset will more than likely be released when AMD releases the Athlon 4 in a destop platform. At that time we will see the AMD 760 chipset decline in price, and that's when I'll upgrade to the 760 accompanied with a Tunderbird CPU.

So my new question is:

What is the best motherboard on the market today with the AMD 760 chipset?

__________________
ECS K7S5A
T-Bird 1400
NO O/C! "AAAAAUUUU"

Check out this excellent AMD-760 Mainboards Roundup:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/...0105/index.html

__________________
ECS K7S5A
T-Bird 1400
NO O/C! "AAAAAUUUU"

Personally, I am a stubborn bastard. I'd stick with my ASUS until its time to upgrade to a new ASUS board. Unless of course the ASUS dies...then we'll talk about changing manufacturers.

We need to know more about you! Are you a tweaker/OC'er or do you just want to build a system?

I personally would like a 760MP board that would resemble the Abit KT7A-R in layout and features, that would only cost $300. I think this would be worth the investment, when I consider the software I use. Just hoping there will not be any stability issues or bugs.

Secondly, I heard some good stuff about the SIS chipset. It's north and south in one chip, and it rocks! in pre-release testing..
It is faster than the 760 in many situations and already very stable. All it needs now is support from board manufacturers like MSI, Asus, Abit and others.

The KT266/MSI board for Socket A/DDR has had some tweaks and cann now compete with AMD's 760.

I would "hold off" for a month or two until all issues with
DDR based boards can be resolved.

But, if you must, iWill has a decent board: KK266-R
with or without raid, KK266.

It currently don't use DDR ram but they have a board
in production that will.

__________________
Serious Soldier

I say go with DDR now or at least wait until the SiS 735 chipset is released. Boards should be available sometime next month. Personally, not many major manufacturers have signed on with SiS other than MSI that I'm aware. The next chipset being released by AMD is the 760MP and supports multiprocessors which is probably a little much for the average or even extreme user/gamer. Not only that but boards will be ridiculously expensive. A Tyan board has been announced and it'll run around $500 with the AMD 760MP chipset. It'll be availble next week but again, I think this would be too much for most people. Now, I wouldn't say the current boards have issues, it's more like the current chipsets. The VIA KT266 didn't hold up to what people were expecting though it has improved. If I were to buy a board today it would be the ASUS A7M with the AMD 760 chipset though these are very hard to find as ASUS has stopped selling these as the chipset is not mass produced. This hasn't stopped other manufacturer's however, as Gigabyte and Epox have both released new boards based off of the AMD 760 chipset. Both of these look very promising. The boards I'm talking about Gigabyte's 7DXR and the Epox 8K7A+. Both have raid and have all the bells and whistles that an overclocker would want, unlike the ASUS A7M, which came without multiplier adjustment. So I would pick one of those two boards up personally as crucial ddr ram is so low its crazy. ddr! ddr! ddr! and no, i'm not an employee for any manufacturer's. I'm a poor college student who says ddr all the way!!! SD RAM is out the door...long gone. Yes, those kt133a boards are nifty, the amd 761 will have a longer life. It's all about an investment, right? so spend the extra fifty on a board that will have a longer life.