Is anyone using the Epox 8K7A / 8K7A+?

[Tiretool]

I'm about to pull the trigger and buy the 8K7A+ but I just want a little more assurance from someone who's using one.

[Floppyman]

Not to want to rain on your parade tiretool, but are you sure you want to go DDR at this point? The chipsets are still a bit buggy, while the KT133A based boards are more stable I think, and can perform just as well. Just thought I'd tell you to get you thinking about it a bit before you decide. HTH

[morriswindgate]

I have been using an 8K7A with a 1.2 GigHZ CPU and 512 of Crucial PC2100 for a couple of months with no problems, after I found the link below. The one thing that Epox and a lot of other MOBO Manufactures seem to skip on is the BIOS setup in their manuals. This is a real pain when setting up a board with something as new as DDR. The link below gives a detailed setting for the 8K7A and 8K7A+ boards.
It's a great board when it is setup this way, and it has a lot of features on the board, including keyboard start-up and the LED Readout for error codes.
The one thing that can cause some set-up problems is that the AMD761 Northbridge Mini-Port Driver need a Windows Program called "sucatreg.exe" to install and this is only available on a Windows98 SE, Windows98 SE Upgrade, or Windows ME disk. (Although you can easily copy this file from someones disk if you are using Windows98 FE as it is not in a zipped file on the disk)

http://www.lostcircuits.com/motherboard/epox_8k7a+/6.shtml

[Tiretool]

Floppyman, I'm past the point of no return on my decision for DDR. I already purchased 256 Megs of DDR Mushkin Memory and I'm willing to gamble on a new technology. This setup is proving to be anywhere from 10-15% faster in benchmarks than the KT133A boards and they can only get better in my opinion.

morriswindgate, thanks for the info and the link. I read a review on HardOCP that said the BIOS explanations aren't detailed in the manual. I guess that means I'll be asking alot of questions on here. :)

Anyone else using this board?

[morriswindgate]

TireTool on the link is a very detailed BIOS setup for this board, just follow it and you won't be asking questions.

[Tiretool]

Thanks much!

[Floppyman]

This setup is proving to be anywhere from
10-15% faster in benchmarks than the KT133A boards and they can only get better in my opinion.


Hmmm, I dunno. From what I've read and seen over at Anand's it really didn't seem like it, plus those benchmarks were taken at the 100 and 133fsb. Just thing what a system with a bus of 145-150 and CAS 2 ram could do. But if you're dead set on DDR that's fine. Take a look at the Abit KG7-RAID too, it's the only board that has 4 DDR slots currently.

[Tiretool]

I can't see the need for any more than 512 Megs of memory in even the distant future. I wouldn't take advantage of more than 2 slots. For the stuff I do on my systems (gaming, surfing the web, light office work, etc.) 256 will be more than enough.

[rios__]

Wasn't that the motherboard that had problems with SB Live?

[HackinCowboy]

The VIA Chipset has problems with SB Live cards.