Newbie needs help

[jeduars]

Hi everyone i want to buy a new mobo for a pentium 4 1.5 Ghz (socket 478) I heard the sis 645 chipset has great performance, what brand makes the best sis chipset board (wich one do you reccomend)?? i mean the fastest and the one that lets me tweak most of the bios settings, also i have a question, does performance varies within the boards with the same chipset or just the features?.

ahh and at last but not least, what chipset do you recommend for pentium 4!

Thanks and Happy new year to everyone out there!

 

[HonestJhon]

i have heard that the intel850 was the best, but that uses RDRAM...which is supposed to be kinda expensive. but it is like 20 bucks more than ddr for a 256 meg module..
look for a p4 board that uses ddr...
sorry, i dont know any...

-DAvid

-Live, Learn, then build your own computer!-

 

[o1die]

The only board I've seen with the sis 645 chipset is the asus p4s333 with raid (atacom $129). Gamepc has a review of the asus p4s333 comparing it with the intel 850 and via p4x266 chipset boards. The sis is very close in performance to the intel 850. I like the fact that you don't have to buy ddram in pairs, like rdram.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by o1die on 01/01/02 01:45 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[dan_gao86]

performance does varies with the different boards using the same chipset, but i'd think most boards have only marginal differences...


The No. 1 cause of divorce is marriage - 100% of all divorces starts with marriage

 

[Guest]

I could do with some help too. This is actually the first time I am attempting to build a PC. I'm going for a Pentium 4 (somewhere between 1.4 Ghz and 1.6 Ghz), and have decided to spend the extra money for RD-RAM. I cant decide what motherboard to get, I was looking at A-bit M'boards and a lot of the newish ones mentions something called RAID. I dont really know anything about RAID, will my newish 40Gb (ATA 100) Seagate drive work with those m'boards? (My current PC can only recognise 3 Gb of it, sheesh).
I'm not interested in over-clocking or having the cutting edge, but just something relatively decent.

 

[jeduars]

Well I also heard about that asus board and seems to be kinda cool I've also seen another one with the sis thingy I think it was a ECS or some brand like that, but it only had 3 pci slots and they are not enough ! but i gotta accept it had a VERY attractive price.. hehe... anyway I just wanted to ask another thing, what exactly is northwood, I know it's a 478 pentium 4 but what speeds or models or what?! I have a 478 pentium 4 1.5 gigs is it northwood or willamette , however it spells, or what's the geek name of my proc haha just curious about it hahaha

 

[o1die]

Northwood is the new intel p4 cpu with 512k cache. The 2.2 and 2.0 versions are pricey (about $475-675), but a 1.6 and 1.8 version may also be available at a more affordable price. Official release date is monday, Jan 7th. Price cuts on the old socket 478 willamette cores may follow, as well as amd price cuts.

 

[error_911]

Well, motherboard manufacturers using the same chipset have to bundle their MoBos with better goodies to attract customers, and the little differences in wuality do reflect performance. With an SIS645 chipset on an Intel platform, I would go with a nice Gigabit board... there's a nice review of a bunch of those boards in the "Review" section of this website.