"n00b-at-this" said:
the cross posting. Sorry if this violates any rules. Here are questions:
1. Looking at Abit KV8-MAX 3. Is this exhaust fan system, OTES, reliable?
If the OTES fan stops, does the system power down automatically? Are the
replacement OTES fans expensive? Easy to replace? Noisy?
2. Looking at Asus KV8-Deluxe. Good choice? Slightly less expensive than
Abit and no fancy exhaust; is it needed?
3. What board would *YOU* choose? Reasons? Asus versus Abit warranty?
Other considerations? Not really planning to overclock, but if so, not too
aggressive.
Thanks
I'll reply in the Asus newgroup.
OTES is a cooling tunnel and small fan, that cool only the MOSFETs and toroidal
powered iron cores. If the fan fails, the plastic tunnel will insulate the
components from any surrounding air. Considering this idea was invented to save
money for Abit, would you expect to find it equipped with a thermal cutoff ?
Compare the two boards for a moment. If you examine a number of boards lately,
many of them survive quite nicely with various sizes of passive heatsinks for
the Northbridge. Possible exceptions to that, would be Northbridge chips with
built-in graphics cores, as the graphics would kick out a few more watts
of heat.
The Asus board manages to do a perfectly normal powering solution, implementing
a three phase Analog Devices powered converter, without even the benefit of
passive copper sinks on the MOSFETs. To prevent thermal runaway in MOSFETs, you
have to design some margin into them, and the end result is that the MOSFETs
run cool up to the design limits of the current they are expected to deliver.
If you find the MOSFETs hot to the touch, it might not take too much more
current
consumption, or too much of a rise in room air temperature, to push them over
the edge. What happens is they get hotter, more resistive, hotter, nore
resistive
etc. So, to avoid hitting that point, they normally should be running cool.
Asus manages to avoid a fan on the Vcore circuit and also manages to run the
Northbridge with only a passive heatsink.
From Newegg...
Abit KV8-MAX 3 $180
CPU: AMD socket 754 Athlon 64 CPU
FSB: 800MHz
Chipset: VIA K8T800 / VT8237
RAM: 3x 184-pin DDR at 266/333/ 2x@400MHz (ECC) 2GB Max w/ 72-bit memory
Controler
IDE: 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133
RAID: 4 x SATA 150 RAID 0/1/0+1
SATA: Supports SATA data transfer rates at 150 MB/s
Expansion Slots:
- 1x AGP (8X/4X)
- 5x PCI Slots
I/O Ports: 2x PS/2, 6x USB 2.0/1.1 ports, 1x RJ45 ports, 1x COM ports, 1x
LPT, 3x IEEE 1394
Onboard LAN: 10/100/1000 Mb PCI Ethernet Controller
Onboard Audio: 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC
Model: KV8-MAX3 - Retail Box (See Pics)
Asus K8V Deluxe $137
Specifications:
Supported CPU: AMD Socket 754 Athlon 64 Processor
Chipset: VIA K8T800 + VIA VT8237
FSB: Hyper Transport
RAM: 3x DDR400/333/266 ECC Support Max 3GB
IDE: 2x Ultra DMA ATA133/100/66 up to 4 Devices
SATA: 4x SATA 150
RAID: RAID 0,1 (2 SATA Ports); RAID 0,1, 0+1(Other 2 SATA Ports)
Slots:1x AGP (8X) 5x PCI
Ports: 2xPS2, 1xCOM, 1xLPT, 2x1394, 1xLAN, 8xUSB2.0(Rear 4/Front 4), and Audio
Onboard Audio: ADI 1980 6 Channel Codec
Onboard LAN: 3COM 3C940 Gigabit
The feature sets look very close and the Asus is cheaper.
I'll leave it to you to decide what the real reason for the two fans on the
Abit board is all about. Who know, maybe the board will be more stable that
way.
About the only other factor to consider are overclocking features, and I'm
too lazy to try and find the Abit manual right now
Don't be in too much of a rush to buy either one of these boards, as
there should be plenty of other designs using the same chip set. In
the case of the Intel 875 and 865, there are at least 50 or 60 designs
using them, so if you wait a couple of months, there might be an
even better K8T800 based board out there. It is still pretty early in
the life cycle of the chipset, and if you buy now you'll be an "alpha"
test site.
Actually, if you enter "K8T800" in the Newegg search engine, there
are 11 designs for sale already. One of them is even a dual
(MSI K8T Master2) ! Drool...
Paul
