Via Apollo Pro133 Chipset?

[gmgq]

I know this chipset is kinda old now, but I need a replacement mobo for my P3-550 slot1 system (the BIOS got fried by a virus, still might be salvageable, but maybe I'll upgrade anyways).

So anyways, a local guy has two slot1 mobo's for sale:

- Intel 440BX chipset
- Via Apollo Pro133 Chipset (w/ sound)

I'd prefer the build in sound because my current (dead) mobo had built in sound/video/lan. It's just gonna be my server, so I'd prefer not to stick a lot of unecessary PCI cards into it. The more built in stuff the better.

He's selling the VIA board for a decent price, but I seem to remember VIA having some 'issues.' Suggestions? TIA.

[NDC]

Personally, I would lean towards the Apollo Pro 133 Chipset vs. the Intel BX440 chipset. Althought the BX440 chipset is a rock stable chipset, it lacks features such as AGP4X (Which isn't a big deal though) and you would have to purchase a secondary IDE controller to attain transfers rates over UDMA-33 for IDE hard drives.

I used to have a Soltek-EV1 which is based on the Apollo Pro133 chipset and it was a very stable mainboard from my past experience using it. I gave it to my brother-in-law who ran Windows 2000 and currenty runs WIndows XP and it's running rock stable.

[Tomteriffic]

Seems the Via chipset had some serious issues with Latency on the PCI bus and didn't want to play nice with (I believe) Sound Blaster Live soundcards. But, for your purposes, it might be just fine.

[jadison]

Well since you won't be plugging in a sound card (hence the issues it had) and since I've had 'positive' experience with that chipset I'd recommend the Via Apollo Pro 133.

Might I ask how much will he be selling the above motherboard(s)?