I need to build an Athlon system...

I've been researching the DUC, and haven't found many recommended motherboards. I noticed Digi only supports the KT133A chipset, but are there any other boards that work well that aren't Asus? Our last board was an Asus, and it died unexpectedly after a year, so I'm kinda wary of them... Has anybody used the Abit KT7A? It has the KT133A chipset. Do the 266 chipsets work with PT yet?

If you don't want to go with Asus then I'd go with the GA7DX or GA7DXR with 512 MB of DDR PC2100 Micron and an XP1800+ or higher. For around 80.00 it is hard to beat the performance. I really like my A7M266. One of the most reliable motherboards that I've seen or used and very stable. Check the PT Performance thread in the Windows PTLE forum above for more system setups. Good luck. Allen

If you want to stick with the Digi supported KT133a chipset, check out the MSI K7T Turbo2 motherboard. I had a super easy setup, and it runs wonderfully. I'm only running an Athlon T-Bird 950 in it, but you can drop up to an Athlon XP 1800 in it. And, the circuit board is red. haha. Like I always say, it's all about the looks. - kip

Hi I agree with Allen: I have the same board (Asus A7M266), and it's really super stable in the system I configured (thanx again Allen and the others on the DUC),which is a scary thing to say in a PC world...I'm running it with an Athlon 1800XP and 512 mb DDR Ram, and my PTLE setup can run smoothly for a 12 hour session: no freezes or crashes or lockups in 2 months of intensive use (daily). Gigabytes run OK as well, go with them if you like them more, I just wanted to defend Asus stability. Cheers L.G.

I didn't have any problems with our Asus, until it unexpectedly had some sort of bios stroke after only a year. I agree, setup is super easy with those boards, but I'd rather try a different manufacturer. I've heard good things about the MSI board, and that's the one I have my eye on at the moment. Are the 266 based versions of the supported chipset ok to use? Does Digi have a stance?