ATA 133 DDR Board

[Da Whip]

Check this bad boy out;
http://www.iwillusa.com/whats_new/SeeMore.asp?ID=93[/URL]

[Superman]

and even better, you can win it by going to:

http://www.iwill.com.tw/xp333/

[Daniel ~]

Enough to curl the toes of any Iwill fan! ":O}

[Superman]

Originally posted by Daniel ~
Enough to curl the toes of any Iwill fan! ":O}

Or anyone who'd just like a free motherboard

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I'm an IWill fan, and I like a free motherboard!

[Superman]

Originally posted by WhoBeDaPlaya
I'm an IWill fan, and I like a free motherboard!

Then you should keep your fingers crossed until they pick the winners (Nov. 1) and maybe you'll win

[EPoX Tech]

EPoX 8KHA2 will have ATA133 RAID courtesy of the HPT372 controller.

[Random Nonsense]

true epox tech, but what about 333MHZ FSB ?? or do you think Iwill just did what all us overclockers do and up the FSB.... no hardware changes at all? if this is so... that board is pretty pointless! i think im gonna stick with a KT266a.... can always overclock FSB up to about 160 - 170.... so 320 - 340 DDR

[Superman]

Originally posted by Random Nonsense
true epox tech, but what about 333MHZ FSB ?? or do you think Iwill just did what all us overclockers do and up the FSB.... no hardware changes at all? if this is so... that board is pretty pointless! i think im gonna stick with a KT266a.... can always overclock FSB up to about 160 - 170.... so 320 - 340 DDR

Yeah, I think the dividers are the only thing that matters. They probably just stuck in native support for it by putting another setting in the BIOS.

[Random Nonsense]

The dividers arent done by hardware then? so its literally a case of an update to the bios?

[proze]

the clock generator has to support the necessary dividers afaik, as it generates the agp and pci clocks from the fsb speed. and it does so at specified thresholds, so the bios gives it what fsb to run at, and the clock gen does the rest. epox tech suggested this by pointing to an ics clock gen datasheet when asked about clock dividers.

[EPoX Tech]

Originally posted by Random Nonsense
true epox tech, but what about 333MHZ FSB ?? or do you think Iwill just did what all us overclockers do and up the FSB.... no hardware changes at all? if this is so... that board is pretty pointless! i think im gonna stick with a KT266a.... can always overclock FSB up to about 160 - 170.... so 320 - 340 DDR

Iwill's board is based on a DDR333 chipset, albiet made by Acer Labs, wherease our board is made using a DDR266 chipset.

Iwills board will natively therefore have dividers to suit it at DDR333 speeds.

With regard to KT266a on 8KHA+ and 8KHA2 and the forthcoming 8KHAL and 8KHM, the chipset is a DDR 266 chipset.

Please refer to Proze's post - he did read the ICS specification for the 94228 PLL and does understand how this works.

[dimmreaper]

Originally posted by Random Nonsense
The dividers arent done by hardware then? so its literally a case of an update to the bios?

No there is more to it than a BIOS update. If that was all there was to it, we would have been seeing hacked BIOSes for years now. Older chipsets(and all Intel chipsets) had the divider built in to the chipset from what I gather. But it is my understanding that the newer chipsets rely directly on the PLL for the PCI clock and divider logic.(If any smart folks want to correct me just jump in here, I'm just relating my understanding of things).

The PLL on the EPoX EP-8KHA+ offers both 1/5th and 1/6th PCI dividers. The boards BIOS officially supports up to 199MHz FSB, however the PLL will go to 233 so a hacked BIOS would probably unlock those(I doubt you could run those high FSB without supercooling the entire motherboard, and even then it's iffy). But from I gather that getting beyond the FSBs required for the 1/5th PCI divider would be some what difficult without whipping out your soldering iron to pump the VIO up.

[dimmreaper]

Damn, proze and EPoX Tech were too fast for me

[irsquirt]

Are there any reviews/previews for the Asus DDR333 chipset out there?

[EPoX Tech]

ASUS don't make chipsets, may you be referring to the Acer Labs DDR333 chipset ?

[Random Nonsense]

Ok i got it now! thanks guys.... i dont think i will go with the Iwill board.... doesnt sound like its all that much better..... the acer labs chipset doesnt have the same memory bandwidth as a KT266a does it? i think i read about it somewhere but not 100% sure, i'll check a few places in a sec...

[dimmreaper]

I love my EP-8KHA+ Random, I won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. It's got the stability and plug-n-playablity that the novice needs, and most of the features an enthusiast craves. All it's really lacking in a way to up the VIO, but I'm working on this one, hope I can figure it out.

The EP-8KHA2 might have more overclocking features, we can hope anyway, and the ATA133 raid sounds sweet if your in the market for something like that(not my cup of tea, but many will appreciate it I'm sure).

And if you fell like waiting for KT333, I'm sure EPoX will have a fine board based on it as well, especially if it's northbridge is pin compatible with the KT266(a) part.

For some reason a lot of Mobo makers are staying far away from the VIA DDR SocketA chipsets, I can certainly state that it doesn't seem to be for stability reasons as initially rumored. I think it might be Intel putting pressure on some of these firms, but maybe not. Of course I have no way of confirming that speculation. So I'm pretty much talking out of my arse again.

[irsquirt]

Oops,

You say Acer, I say Asus (and I get it wrong)

Anyway, has anyone seen a review of the Acer DDR333 chipset?

[irsquirt]

Scratch that question - I got off my a$$ and checked myself.

What I don't understand is that this board uses the ALiMAGiK 1 chipset (M1647 Northbridge). ALi only claim support for PC2100/DDR266 - not PC2700/DDR333 as IWill claim. Also, the board only officially supports 133MHz FSB.

I can't see any difference between this board and any other ALiMAGiK 1 board - we all know that the memory bandwidth of that chipset is worse than either the AMD 760 or KT266A!