Well after much deliberation I have decided to replace my Epox 8RDA non + with an Abit nForce 2 NF7-S rev 2.0. I'm not here to rub it in or anything, I just felt I should justify my decision to you guys (and to some effect myself :clown: ). Overall my 8RDA has been pretty good other than the initial bios problems that I now realize caused all my problems when I first got the board (i.e. multiple pci ide controllers causing my system to hose which now work flawlessly together). My system is stable and obtaining best performance at 185 fsb, though I'm sure the memory can handle a significant amount more. My reasons for leaving:
1). Weak Epox support in the area of bios releases for the 8RDA non + I feel us non + users are really getting the shaft here (untimely updates and reduced stability).
2). 8RDA3+ is still not available in the US (though it will be any day now, and from what I read it offers me no real advantage over Abit's offering and I should be able to achieve higher fsb without modding the board - Abit has a fan on the NB)
3). Abit offers 3 phase power where Epox only offers 2. Many will argue this matters little but Abit boards tend to be more overclockable in the CPU department.
My new motherboard and an Antec 550w TruPower
PSU should be here Wednesday I hope, just in time for a 4 day vacation from work (which hopefully doesn't turn out to be 4 days of troubleshooting like my 8RDA purchase did).
Take care guys.
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Abit NF7-S - AMD Athlon XP 2500+ Barton @2300MHz - 210fsb (decided I don't have to redline
) - 1 GB PC3500 Corsair PLT 11-2-2-2 - Thermalright SLK-800 + Vantec Tornado 84.1cfm - ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 360/340 - Sony G420S 19" - Sound Blaster Audigy 2 - Logitech Z-680 Speakers - Dual Western Digital 80GB 8mb RAID 0 - Western Digital 80GB 2mb buffa' pr0n storage - LiteOn 16x DVD - LiteOn 52x24x52 Burner - Windows XP SP1a.