Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (
More info?)
Thanks for the detailed information.
I intend stripping my a7v133 ,cpu ,ram,and graphics card out of my "big box"
and setting up a new system for my wife with one of the old hdds in a new
smaller box. And rebuilding with a new psu.
As an example, how many ide devices would a P4C800-E be able to accommodate
without adding an extra card.
Perhaps later on I could add sata drive if needed.
I had been looking at the spec of that particular board, but as I said
earlier I am out of touch with modern stuff.
I will not be doing any fast gaming but some video editing and office work.
thanks again Peter
"Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
news:nospam-0111040511140001@192.168.1.177...
> In article <cm30rs$8k$1@titan.btinternet.com>, "grylion"
> <grylion@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi all,
> > I built my last system 3 years ago and am out of touch with modern tech
> > jargon (sata etc)
> > I need advice on a new motherboard to replace my ageing asus a7v133
with a
> > 1.2 g athlon
> > I have four ide hdds fitted (not raid configured) and a cd rewriter.
> > I would like to keep my 4 drives, two contain data.
> > Can anyone advise me on any board that might meet my requirements.
> > I am looking for something that will take a 3G P4
> > Onboard sound, firewire, plenty of USB sockets would be acceptable.
> > regards Peter
>
> There are many boards listed on the Asus web site that meet those
> requirements. The tricky part, is the storage requirement. Generally,
> Southbridges are straight forward, in terms of characteristics, but
> the separate chips provided to extend the number of storage interfaces,
> have to be carefully studied, as their characteristics are not
> documented very well. Fortunately, for example, the manuals of the
> boards, happen to mention that ATAPI is not supported on the Promise
> 20378 chip, so at least you know the CDRW won't work on there. It can
> always be run from the Southbridge IDE interfaces.
>
> The least hassle, might be buying a motherboard, and slapping a
> separate PCI IDE controller into the motherboard, for any extra disks
> you happen to have. That way, you can shop for a PCI card, where all
> the characteristics are known, and that will make the machine easier
> to configure.
>
> As your A7V133 uses SDRAM, you'll have to upgrade the RAM to use the
> new boards. To be able to reuse your SDRAM again, you might need
> something like an old P4B motherboard. Last year's boards use DDR
> memory, and some but not all of the latest 915/925 boards, use DDR2
> memory. Memory can be an expensive part of upgrading, so you may
> want to price those two kinds of memory, to see whether they are
> in your budget range. As for type, I would think for DDR, some
> PC3200 CAS3 would be acceptable, while for DDR2, some DDR2-533 memory
> would give equal performance to the PC3200. You can take the model
> number of the motherboard over to Crucial.com, and search for the
> motherboard there, and their search engine will show you some
> compatible product. Buy a matched pair of DIMMs, to take advantage
> of dual channel memory access. (I.e. If you need 512MB of RAM, buy
> two 256MB sticks of the same type and speed.)
>
> If you are overclocking, I would buy an 875 based board. If running
> at stock speed, I would get an 865 or an 875. Both of those use the
> cheaper DDR memory. If you want a microATX board, the P4P800-VM is
> one of the few Asus microATX boards that has a decent BIOS. It uses
> an 865GE with build in graphics (good enough for office apps, but not
> for heavy gaming - no microATX is good for heavy gaming via built-in
> graphics in the Northbridge - you need a video card for that).
>
> In non-Intel chipset boards, the P4S800D-E comes recommended. The
> people who have bought them, don't seem to have problems with them.
> Personally, I wouldn't touch a P4Rxxx ATI chipset board - maybe on
> their next chipset, they'll get the details right.
>
> One issue with many Asus boards, is the built-in peripherals are
> seldom the chips that people would pick if they had a choice. For
> example, you'll find Via Firewire chips on some of the boards, and
> people who use their Firewire interfaces a lot, would probably want
> a non-Via chip for that. If you buy one of these boards, be
> prepared to have to buy a separate PCI card with the function you
> want on it, in case the built-in one doesn't meet with your
> expectations.
>
> The storage chips, usually have some gotchas, and that is why sometimes
> it is better for your piece of mind, to get a PCI card to replace
> that function. Personally, if doing a RAID, I would rather shop for
> a two port IDE RAID card, then be stuck with the Promise 20378 mixture
> of IDE and SATA.
>
> In short, it is pretty hard to recommend any board, when it comes to
> all the tiny details. I am pretty happy with my P4C800-E, but don't
> own any SATA drives, so I cannot tell you everything you need to know
> about the 20378.
>
> Asus does provide a comparison chart, but if I was the boss at Asus,
> I would fire the employee who prepared it. It is riddled with errors,
> and does not include details of the storage interfaces on each board.
> This makes the shopping job that much harder.
>
>
http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/overview_p4.htm
>
> HTH,
> Paul
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