What do you think about the athlons?

[Shades]

I Like Athlons classics/Durons/T'Birds.

But I hate those those damned VIA chipsets!

If Athlons and p-3s cost the same I would choose the P-3s because they are way better in terms of getting things working right on the first try.

I mean I have a Athelon classic 750 and everytime I install a video card, there is always a problem that I had to find out and correct.
ViperII needed to update VIA 4 in 1s.
Radeon needed to set AGP driving control to 68 to get it work at 2XAGP.
It was hell trying to get this card to work. Black screens, window hangs, you name it.
It wasn't ATI's fault it was all VIA!
All the old board VIA Drivers came with the board was POS because everyone of them needed to get updated or system fails to perform correctly.

Those might not sound to bad, but believe me it was bad. It was annoying, hair pulling, and fustrating.

I have had enough of this VIA ********!

So, if they don't darmatically improve their chips to a point it matches intels, for my next comp I'm switching over to P-4s. I don't care if I have to pay more, I would weather pay more than to spent hours trying to figure out the problem.

Taiwan sure makes great hardwares but I think they stink at Drivers.



oh yeah, currently my system is running very smooth but I went thru hell and back to get it working this way. yes I do feel proud but I don't want to go thru it again.

I'm feeling better now, but whats your view on Athlons? Hate them, love them or just confused?

-S
Athlon 750 ABIT KA7
256MB RAM
Radeon 32MBDDR
SB Live! X-Gamer
10x DVD
350 Watt PS
windows98SE

[BloodRed]

Yep, you basically summed up my thoughts as well. I don't want to have to consult a compatability list everytime I buy new hardware. Intel works with everything, and the chipsets aren't giving me headaches like a lot of the VIA ones are doing to Athlon owners, so as long as their chips are competitive I'll stick with them.

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-BR

P3 700E@933
Leadtek GF2 32MB
BloodRed's House.com
"For every action, there will be at least one special interest group that is offended." -BR '00

[Shades]

Originally posted by BloodRed:
Yep, you basically summed up my thoughts as well. I don't want to have to consult a compatability list everytime I buy new hardware. Intel works with everything, and the chipsets aren't giving me headaches like a lot of the VIA ones are doing to Athlon owners, so as long as their chips are competitive I'll stick with them.

I do like the fact Athlons are being competitive.

You consulted a compatabilty list?
Well, I consulted a therapist.

-S
Is just kidding.

[Humus]

I think that installing a chipset driver isn't a very difficult task to do. I wouldn't pay a lot more for a Intel chip to be sure that correct drivers were installed with windows.

[Shades]

Originally posted by Humus:
I think that installing a chipset driver isn't a very difficult task to do. I wouldn't pay a lot more for a Intel chip to be sure that correct drivers were installed with windows.

Its not a problem installing new drivers, the problem is new drivers doesn't fix your problem.
Actually installing new drivers has become a habit.

In my case the radeon actually runs at 4x agp if I uninstall the latest VIA drivers.

Installing new drivers 4.25a didn't solve my problem with the radeon refusing to run above 1x AGP.

Manually tweaking the bios did however solved it. But newbies don't know about bios, all they can count on are the drivers.


VIA probably have monkies writting their drivers.

-S
I brought a lemon.
No, not a car but a computer.

[bryman]

i think alot of the problems you are having is that you have the "classic" athlon. i had a 650 on a ka7 and it was always a battle.
but now that i switched to socket a 750 t-bird and the kt7-raid. life has been sweet.
don't throw amd out without trying the newest chipset.
and jumping to a p-4 right now would only give you all the same head-aches all over again.

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AMD all the way!!
750 tbird oc to 1g and running strong!!

[mpitts]

Originally posted by bryman:
i think alot of the problems you are having is that you have the "classic" athlon. i had a 650 on a ka7 and it was always a battle.
but now that i switched to socket a 750 t-bird and the kt7-raid. life has been sweet.
don't throw amd out without trying the newest chipset.
and jumping to a p-4 right now would only give you all the same head-aches all over again.

For me, most of the problems were with the AMD 750 chipset. I like the Via KT/KX133 chipsets. I am looking forward to the 760 and hoping it is better than the 750.


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"Everyone knows the best bands are affiliated with Satan."

[Phoenix]

Originally posted by bryman:
i think alot of the problems you are having is that you have the "classic" athlon. i had a 650 on a ka7 and it was always a battle.
but now that i switched to socket a 750 t-bird and the kt7-raid. life has been sweet.
don't throw amd out without trying the newest chipset.
and jumping to a p-4 right now would only give you all the same head-aches all over again.

I agree, my Tunderbird hasn't had any problems, even on an A7V.

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When asked how World War III would be fought, Einstein replied that he didn't know. But he knew how World War IV would be fought: With sticks and stones!

[mpitts]

Originally posted by Phoenix:
I agree, my Tunderbird hasn't had any problems, even on an A7V.

Yep.. the nightmare AMD 750 chipset caused all of the "incompatability" problems we hear so much about..



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"Everyone knows the best bands are affiliated with Satan."

[llreye]

750? That's VIA fault too since they took so long to debug the KX133 which still had to be fixed with the KT133 to support SocketA.
-MKC