Build Me a System

[crash6565]

I'm building a new system, and would like some information and recommendations.

I want the best motherboard/memory for one of the latest P4's. Assuming price is not a consideration, what is the best motherboard packed full of features available. The Abit IC7-MAX3 seems to be pretty darned hard to beat. I want the SATA RAID capabilities, Gigabit LAN, Firewire etc. Is there any benefit to having these on the board vs. cards? Is this the fastest board as far as bus speeds? I'd like to use the fastest/best memory available now, is DDR400 the best? Any other things I should consider? I don't care to overclock, just want the best board/p4/memory combo. Are boards building in bluetooth right now? I just want to make sure I'm not leaving anything out... sorry for the redundancy.

Thanks for the help.

Chris

 

[arkus]

Seems to be one of the most feature rich boards out there at the moment IMHO yeah...

But you'll be paying a lot more $$$ for it than the IS7, - it depends whether you *need* RAID 1/0, 6 hard drives, Gigabit LAN and the 875P chipset (as opposed to the 865PE).

[Edit: added info]

Apparently there's little difference between PCI cards and on-board RAID controllers in terms of speed and the like, but if you have a card it does offer you more flexibility. Also, some people here have had problems when transferring RAID arrays from an old mobo to a new one, (and thus using a different on-board controller). Me, I use a Highpoint 1640 4 channel SATA RAID PCI card, and I can't fault it so far, but then again, there were no mobos around with on-board 1/0 RAID controllers at the time.

PIV2.6|IS7-G|1GbDDR266|R9700Pro|SonicFury5.1|4*36GbRaptor[1/0]
2*120GbCaviar|Highpoint1640|CRW-F1|GC7000|460w EG465AX-VE(G)
ATC210cAX-1|1451Visionmaster|AltecLansing5100|WinXPSP1|DX9.0b<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by arkus on 02/17/04 07:59 PM.</EM></FONT></P>