GA-7VAXP Ultra XP2600+ 333FSB

[ajst2duk]

just traded up from an Asus A7V333 with XP2100+ and for what it's worth, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't jump as quick. I was considering an Asus A7N8X Nforce 2 board but was jack of reloading XP. The transfer was fine - I like this board.

Dets:
GA-7VAXP Ultra XP2600+ 333FSB running at 176FSB/2200
Mushkin Level2 PC2700 (256MB) running at 2-2-2
Leadtek Ti200 Def 175/400 running rock solid at 250/500
D-Link 802.11b Wireless Lan DWL 520+
Topower 370 Phantom PSU
Vantech Stealth case fans
Thermaltake Volcano 9
Western Digital WD800J 80G 8MB buffer HD master
Seagate Barracuda 80G 7200 slave
LG 24X10X40
DVD Sony

Weak link from an O/C perspective is the 802.11 card which craps at 180+FSB
Otherwise fine 3D Mark at 10500 (9500 with A7V333/2100+)

[SecretSquirrel]

Get a better video card :D

Seriously, all the reviews said its not really an upgrade from KT266/KT333 boards...its really only for first time leapers from KT133/other, or someone wanting all the extras.

I personally got one for the sheer hell of it. Nice RAM by the way! I get 12k 3DMarks with terrible PC2100 RAM and an XP2000+ at 1800MHz, but my score is mostly due to my lovely Ti4200 @ 315/615.

I intend to try again today at 325/635! (Colder day :D)

[ajst2duk]

Yeah I know, trusty ol Ti200 gotta go sometime soon. It was the ducks nuts in my Celery 1300 (o/c 1550) system, but is now running at the back of the pack. BTW I am a recent AMD convert, these things are fun & more challenging, including the crunchy CPU cores !!!!
I have toasted a lot of cash in the last three months, keen to have a breather, but I will be soreley tempted by a gainward Ti4200 8X AGP golden sample. A great value card !!!
My head tells me that all the games I own run great, so chasing that ever elusive perfect 3DMark score might be a pursuit in futility :-)

This card has been a cracker though, has chugged rock steady for the most part at 250/500 settings and many different PCI freq without blinking.
Damn pity about the D-link, it is very O/clock unfriendly. I was hoping fopr a spin-up to 200FSB to see how this 2600+ really rocks. Hmmm

[Eagle32]

Originally posted by SecretSquirrel
Get a better video card :D

Seriously, all the reviews said its not really an upgrade from KT266/KT333 boards...its really only for first time leapers from KT133/other, or someone wanting all the extras.



MMM extras :D That'd be me on all counts.

Have you had any issues with the Promise RAID controller in ATA mode? I was ok till I put a slave drive on the primary channel then windows XP wouldn't boot anymore. 4hrs of testing (thought it was te drive or combination of drives initially) and a reinstall latter and I discovered that the driver on the cd was version "2.0.1020.40".

After checking the Gigabyte website i noticed that that driver version is actually listed as a beta so i grabbed the most rescent final release (2.0.1020.32 at this time) and switched to that. Plugged a drive in and all was go with no problems.

Now I have 6 HDD's, a DVD and CD-RW all working and evreything is running sweet as :D After a few days I have had no major problems except for that driver

[ajst2duk]

Have you had any issues with the Promise RAID controller in ATA mode? I was ok till I put a slave drive on the primary channel then windows XP wouldn't boot anymore. 4hrs of testing (thought it was te drive or combination of drives initially) and a reinstall latter and I discovered that the driver on the cd was version "2.0.1020.40".
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Nah, Haven't ried it yet. Buy the way I have just popped a Leadtek Ti4200 8X AGP 128MB card in, and am pimping my previous Ti200 on trademe currently.
It was a good upgrade, will keep me happy until the new Nvidia chip comes out.
I will wait for serial drives to drop a little in price then will try and set-up 2X120MB sata raid configuration.