Aybody try the via processors?

[resnullius]

I've been looking for a comp for a friend of mine and saw via processors.. i was wondering if there anygood, if anybody had tried them? they're at really good prices. you can get a decent setup(well decent depends on the use it will recieve) for about 400$cad all included except for the monitor...
any input would be appreciated

[vigilante]

I setup a workstation with a Dragon board, which carried the Via KT266A chipset. The system seemed to work fine except for some of the bus mastering. It gave me a lot of problems with my firewire, and it seems like a lot of users with the similiar chipset had similiar issues. There also seems to be a lot of hesitation regarding the via 4 in 1 drivers that come with these boards. There seems to be %50 division between people who have problems and people who don't. If you dont plan to do firewire I don't see why not using a board with this chip. Personally I ended up going back to a amd 761 chipset. Well good luck, on your choice. Let us know what you picked.

[resnullius]

thx vigilanty but i didn't want to know about the chipset i wanted to know about the via gigapro processor (intel has pentium 4, amd has tbird, via has gigapro).

[vigilante]

oops !

[zzyzzx]

No. Considering that they can't even make a decent MB chipset why risk it on one of their processors?

[tigerwolf]

oh your forgot that cyrix has their processor as well. LOL.

Also the via processor is not even comparable to the p4 or athlon. It doesn't even hold a candle to them.

They are some what comparable to the celeron. I tested the via c3-800mhz chip and in my opinion my kids pentium II-400mhz machine runs better.

I'd say go with an athlon or pentium chip. Now if you aren't looking for p4 or xp speed, then I noticed tigerdirect has a deal on mobo+athlon t-bird chip. The mobo is a shuttle board, which I've never had much luck with, but aren't the worst I've experienced.

Tigerdirect's $99 Deal Here

You'll want to note that the fan doesn't come with the deal.
So here's a cooling fan with thermal gel for $8 from tiger direct.
Cooling Fan W/thermal gel

Here's how I rank processors.
Pentium 4 Or Athlon XP
Athlon Thunderbird
Pentium 3
Athlon
Celeron & Duron
Pentium 2
then you have your pentiums, k6, cyrix, evergreen, and via processors.

[tigerwolf]

also figure this you can get the mobo package above,
now just looking through my tigerdirect catalog here, I've got alot more places to look, but given its sitting here, I'll use it. LOL

package from above $110
nvidia tnt2 m64 32MB agp card $35
128MB ram $25
creative labs 8/4/32 cdrw drive $70
floppy drive $17
creative labs 128 voice sound card $15
keyboard $ 8
mouse $ 7
ATX case $40
20.4 GB western digital HD $90
-------------------------------------------------
total $417

of course windows operating system will cost ya, but you could always go with linux. LOL. you figure windows op system will cost $50-$200 depending on what ya want and where ya get it.

[d4n13l]

I would rather use the CPU out of a TV than use a VIA processor. Cheapo CPUs like VIA and Cyrix are for corporate drones, I suppose thats where most of them end up: Running MS Office on some office network desktop. Not really for VCDers.

[resnullius]

thx for the info tigerwolf , i don't totally agree on all your ratings however... have you ever seen a t-bird burn? i have it's funny if it's not yours... i thnk amd made a mistake making those by the way the prieces don't seem all that good, i can get those prices in CAD funds (that's 67 cents on the american dollar)
and as for the statment of prefering a tv's processor, i'd love to see that d4n13l

[tigerwolf]

I just grabbed prices from a catalog I get here.

The celeron I've never thought highly of at all. I've tested a few and never been really happy with the performance. Though I shouldn't have tossed the duron on the list at all. I haven't tested any durons to really rank it. I was going by the fact that duron is amd's low end processor. I'll have to see if I can get work to let me play with a duron. hehe.

I haven't come across any t-birds that was really bad. Though I will give they run pretty warm and without proper cooling it probably would eat itself. I'd personally get the dual cool fan, and a good thermal paste. And make sure the case had proper airflow.

[d4n13l]

and as for the statment of prefering a tv's processor, i'd love to see that d4n13l

Yeah, maybe a TV processor wouldnt be that good - Perhaps a NES processor instead. LOL

Dude, seriously, avoid processors like VIA and Cyrix likie the plague. If you want a cheap CPU get a Duron, personally I would pay the little extra for a low end Athlon XP.