My choice & here's why
Written: Nov 08 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: DDR, Asus, AMD 761 Chipset, easy overclocking, good documentation, onboard sound
Cons: 2 memory slots, semi-expensive, no multiplier adjustments
The Bottom Line: Good board, good chipset, reputable manufacturer.
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| zap3v's Full Review: ASUS AMD 761 Chipset A7M266 (A7M266/550/WOL/2DIM) ... |
I wanted to build my own PC. So I started with the motherboard (MoBo). I started my search based on chipset. There were 2 chipsets I was considering, one from Via and one from AMD. The Via chipset did not support DDR SDRAM and in comparison tests, it scored lower than AMD 761 chipsets. OK, so I got the chipset down. Then in reviews, I read about comparisons between boards. Asus A7M266 rated highly in all tests as did 2 other boards I wanted (Abit and Biostar). Now it became an issue of availability. I wanted to buy it at a shop in my city so if I had issues, I could return it without going through the mail procedure. I called around and no one had any of the 3. I waited...then I tried again and found only the A7M. I got it as I had no real problem with any of the 3 boards.
So my experience has been excellent. I installed it without a problem. It has no stability issues and seems to be high quality. When installing my heatsink with a screwdriver, it slipped off and drilled the board 3 or 4 times on a few occasions and has never broken or been "injured" so to speak. I thought a few times I just broke it, but I didn't! I was very happy.
It comes with an Award bios that makes for easy overclocking through adjusting the FSB. It is SIMPLE and requires no hardware adjustments on the board itself.
If you wanted to overclock more, you can adjust the voltages on the board itself, but I'm happy enough without doing this.
You cannot adjust the multiplier though, only the FSB so it is not a PERFECT overclocking board per se.
To explain real quick, overclocking is when you adjust your processor speeds to run faster than factory settings. The speed of the processor is based on the Front Side Bus (FBS) and the clock multipler settings. Don't worry what they mean. The FSB x Multiplier gives the speed. For example, my 1.4 GHZ Athlon is set at 10.5 clock multipler and 133 FSB. 10.5 x 133 = 1400 Mhz = 1.4 Ghz. As I said, in the bios, I adjusted the FSB to 143 so I am running at 143x10.5 now, which is 1.5 Ghz from a 1.4 Ghz processor. You can only get so high before it won't startup or causes stability issues. Many times you can adjust the multiplier and the FSB, but in this case with the A7m, you can only adjust the FSB. In the first version of the board, you actually could adjust the multiplier with switches on the board, but Asus got rid of that option because I believe people were either overclocking wrong or unintentionally and fried their boards.
With overclocking, you have to raise the voltages to the CPU to get it to be stable and that can be done rather easily on the board. I could theoretically clock higher if I changed the voltages, but I'm good with 1.5 Ghz.
This board has onboard sound which is pretty good as well alleviating the needs for a sound card.
The documentation is excellent with the board. It was the first board I installed myself and had zero problems.
I have used this on 2 systems I have built and another a friend built with no problems at all from the board.
This board takes a lot of crap from some people, but I have nothing but good things to say. If you are in the market, look at the Abit and Biostar boards too and compare them. I have heard many good things about them as well.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 179
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Epinions.com ID:
zap3v
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Location: Olympia, WA, USA
Reviews written: 46
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
I am an Army officer, Exercise Physiologist, and computer hardware/software & electronics enthusiast.
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