[NCLUG] suggestions on building a box

[Michael Dwyer]

At 09:03 AM 1/12/01 -0700, you wrote:
> >>I'm looking at an Abit kt7 motherboard (athlon chip). From what I can
> >>...
> >
> >It is a VIA chipset board (abit-usa.com).  I'm not fond of VIA's, 
> personally.
>
>Why? I read that they are better now than before but that's just one
>opinion. I'm open for more.

Heh.  No reason.  No /good/ and /logical/ reason, at least. I have been 
concerned with speed and reliability issues that I have half-heard from 
place to place.  That said, I think you are right about better now.  I 
believe that VIAs are the chipset of choice for Athalon machines, at 
least.  Honestly, I cannot say, though.  I dunno.  I know nothing about the 
AMD side of things since I left that 486DX2/80 board.  (Ah, what a great 
machine...)

>I'm also not married to Abit or athlon. I'm looking for reliability and
>bang for the buck. Suggestions?

I can't give you any /viable/ suggestions.  I can only evangelize what I 
currently have.  I've been using the Soyo SY-6BA (soyotek.com) series.  Its 
been a good board for me.  It uses the Intel 440BX chipset.  The only 
problem I have had is that one of my serial ports seems to have gone 
away...  It also has no extra stuff on the motherboard, so I could plug in 
a decent sound card, decent net card, and decent video card.

I think the Via/Intel thing has grown to more of a Coke/Pepsi kind of fight 
than a power/performance fight.  Personal preference, more than anything.

Luke makes an excellent point, by the way -- check out online reviews.  I 
think tomshardware is a good source, too.