P4 Motherboards

[zazoo]

hey people.. i am planning to put together a p4 machine but i'm not sure as to what i should use... i was hoping someone could help me out.
I want a p4 probably 1.7ghz. It seems obvious that the socket423 cpu is not the way to go, according to what i read here on toms hardware the socket 478 would be a safer bet.. but should i be waiting for Northwood to come out or stick with Willamette?

The other thing is the motherboard choice. I was planning to get the Asus P4T when my only option was S423. Now that S478 is out Asus came out with their P4B to accomodate both Willamette and Northwood. Problem is i think it only accomodates SDRAM 100/133. Of course, if RDRAM isn't worth the trouble then go with sdram but is rdram worthwhile?
Finally is the chipset. The P4T runs on the i850 chipset and the P4B uses i845. Which of these is more performant? I've been reading through so much of the articles on this page that i'm going numb, i don't remember what's recommended and what's not and why.. I don't have any huge plans for this machine, no huge 3d rendering projects or something. Just want power at my availability for standard apps and games, with a few occasional video renderings. I'm already running on a decent ATI agp video board, which i plan to use in this. Anyways this isn't a big window so i don't know how long winded i'm being. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated!


Zazoo.

 

[FatBurger]

Wait for Northwood
Get the Abit TH7-II
Simple enough answer?

<font color=green>In memory of all the Americans that died 9/11/01
Rest in peace</font color=green>

 

[stable]

The long and short of it is:

A) The 845 Chipset is a complete joke. Even Intel reps. laugh about it.. only it's not that funny. Stay away.. far, far away. The chipset was designed specifically due to the prices of RAMBUS memory last year. Leave it to Intel to go around the problem versus fixing it. Now that RAMBUS prices are somewhat in line with DDR, this is no longer an issue and thus the chipset is like a year too late to have an impact on the market. The other problem is the Bozo OEM's that have been scared into using it by Intel.

B) The 850 Chipset is REALLY the only choice for a Pentium 4. Remember, the architecture of the P4 is designed SPECIFICALLY around the RAMBUS specifications. Thus, even using a DDR based chipset solution will not beat the 850 in performance OR stability.

C) You are correct in that the Socket 423 is on it's way out. Stick to the 478 ONLY. Also, you should make sure that your motherboard supports the new CPU cores.

Steve Benoit


Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'

 

[o1die]

The P4T-e is the Asus motherboard you want, with support for rambus memory and socket 478. The board was announced recently, and should be at dealers any day now.

 

[zazoo]

are you sure about the p4t-e? when you mentionned it i went to check their website to read up but i can't find a page describing it.. would you mind giving me a url detailing it?
btw is willamette decent or would i be better off waiting for northwood with the .13 micron?


Zazoo.