P4 Motherboard Selection... aaaah!!!

sabre2 · May 20, 2002

Ive been reading about P4 Motherboards and im a bit confused. I want to get the best performance board, using DDR ram or Rambus. Im not sure as to what to get but i want a board that is available for upgrade and has the best features. I dont want to be stuck with a dog but i want something that will let me upgrade in the future without having to replace the board.

I seem to like Gigabyte but with all these new chipsets that are comming out would it be better to wait and see what is gona come out? I know that AGP 8X is the next big step in graphics, and i know that these new chipsets support faster memory... but what does it all come to? If i keep waiting im never going to get a board.

Basically i just want to know whats a good board to get assuming i dont overclock, and that i have a P4 1.8ghz chip, GeForce4 Ti 4400, 512mb of DDR Ram that im going to purchase cause i have SDRAM right now. The reason why i dont have DDR ram right now is cause i dont know what to do for ram... RDRAM or DDR? I dont care if its a little more but whats the best to go with?

Anyways if i could get an answer to these simple questions it would help alot. Im really looking forward to buying a motherboard for my P4 System that is much better... right now its in a dell motherboard laying on the desk cause it doesnt fit in an ATX tower and the only case it fits in wont sport a GeForce4 because it uses a low profile AGP card.

Thanks

Alain Desjardins

pr497 · May 20, 2002

technically...a P4 isnt worth having if you're going to use it at under 2ghz...and since you have a 1.8 ghz...P4 is kinda iffy...so if you want to keep your 1.8....i would suggest overclocking it a bit...
anyways....for motherboard:
rdram: get the abit th7II (with or without raid)...will work great at stock speeds and even better when overclocking.
ddr: asus p4s533 with some pc2700 ram (ddr333) or higher...again...will work great at stock speeds and overclocked...
intel's 845G chipset seems promising though...if you want to wait for it and pay about an extra $50 (my guess)
btw...do you have the northwood 1.8A P4 or the older P4 (without the "A" and with 256 cache)?

ATI's drivers are like a broken faucet, they both keep on leaking...

sabre2 · May 20, 2002

I just checked and my P4 chip says exactly as follows:
1.8ghz/256/400/1.75V
SL5VJ Costa Rica
3148A419-0788
Intelmc'01

And the socket on the board where i put the CPU reads as follow:
mPGA478B

Is that helpfull?

Anyways will any of those boards you say go for this CPU i have? And later on i can upgrade to a Northwood (which is the best right now right?) and have no problems?

The story on this computer is that some guy walked in the store and needed money. He sold his computer for 500$... its a dell computer and was equiped as followed:
1.8ghz CPU, 512mb SDRAM, 32mb ATI Rage Pro, 80gig seagate HD, 16x CDRW, 19inch CRT Display.

I bought a GeForce4 Ti 4400 but it wouldnt fit cause its in a low profile case. So now i got the whole thing laying on my desk without a case and a GeForce4 in it. Im just wondering if i should just sell this and build a new computer but im not sure what to build. Something with DDR or something with Rambus? I figure i can probably sell it for twice as much as i bought cause it advertises on Dell as a 1300$ system.

Anyways, tell me what my future is =) I need advice what to build. I was going to buy a Athlon XP system till this deal came up... then i decided to migrate this one into a tower so i could have a system that is decent.

Thanks

Alain Desjardins

AMD_Man · May 20, 2002

Hmm, you could try to sell it or you could get an Asus P4S533 and 512MB DDR RAM and overclock it to 2GHz or so.

"A penny saved is a penny earned!"

sabre2 · May 20, 2002

Now is there a big difference from the 512kb cache northwood and the processor i have with 256kb cache?

Alain Desjardins

AMD_Man · May 20, 2002

About 5% to 10% per clock.

"A penny saved is a penny earned!"

Crashman · May 20, 2002

According to Tom's latest test, the i850 and RDRAM still outperform anything else on the market. The favored board for this combination is the Abit TH7-II (with or without RAID).

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

AMD_Man · May 21, 2002

Crashman, he's not going to be reaching PC1066 with a Willamette. The P4S533 will destroy the TH7-II in this case, especially with some DDR400.

"A penny saved is a penny earned!"

Crashman · May 21, 2002

OH GAWD, I just read his second post, damn willies. OK, DDR400 has the same bandwidth but significantly less Cas Latency, and SiS will be releasing the 648 chipset for DDR400 soon. DDR333 would give similar performance to PC800. Personally, I'd resell the processor.
But let us consider if he does just that-after all, he will be upgrading the CPU before he replaces his board again, in that case the TH7-II would be a better solution.
If he wants a DDR333 board, the BEST solution is the i845G, but that hasn't hit the market yet at the retail level, to the best of my knowlege.
Ultimately, he's best off using the system the way it is and waiting for something better. The SiS 665 chipset I believe is the one that will offer dual channel DDR in a few months. Add to that the fact that Dell has recently gone back to PROPRIETARY cases, and he'd be best off using it the way it is, and reselling it in a few months to build a completely new system.

What's the frequency, Kenneth?

pr497 · May 21, 2002

with the cpu you have (P4 1.8 willy core)...you wont overclock as high as any northwood P4's out there (may get up to 2 ghz if you try)...but since you wont be doing any overclocking...you may want to go with AMD_Man's idea of going with the P4S533 (about $100) and buying some samsung pc2700 ram (about $70 for 256mb)....the that ram is almost gurranteed to run at ddr400 (pc3200...which you can adjust in the BIOS)...
that combination will give you a pretty good performing system...

ATI's drivers are like a broken faucet, they both keep on leaking...

sabre2 · May 21, 2002

I think i will put this computer back together and sell it. If i do that im thinking of getting the RDRAM board and a northwood cpu.

Thanks all

Alain Desjardins

sabre2 · May 24, 2002

That P4S533 Motherboard seems awsome but isnt there one with RAID? I really would like to stripe two hard drives for performance as i heard that Hard Drives are one of the biggest bottlenecks for computers. Im not going to go for RDRAM cause well damn its so expensive and for what else i could get id rather use DDR. Anyways, so now i guess the real question is... If i sell my computer and buy a P4 1.8A processor along with some PC2700 DDR and use RAID, what board is good? Or should i get the P4S533 and get a Raid card?

Alain

Alain Desjardins

AMD_Man · May 24, 2002

I would get a separate RAID card.

"A penny saved is a penny earned!"

lagger · May 25, 2002

where are you in the world that rdram is so much more that ddr 333?? they are about the same price here in the states

lagger

Checking under my North AND South bridges for Trolls

AMD_Man · May 25, 2002

Here in Toronto:

256MB PC2100 Samsung: $62CDN ($40 US)
256MB PC2700 Samsung: $109 ($70 US)
256MB Samsung PC800: $136 ($88 US)

"A penny saved is a penny earned!"

FatBurger · May 25, 2002

He's in Maine.

Hi mom!

lagger · May 25, 2002

newegg

samsung ddr 333 256 75.00 usd
samsung rdram 800 256 83.00 usd

close enough for me but possibly not for someone on a strict budget

lagger

Checking under my North AND South bridges for Trolls

pr497 · May 26, 2002

i think there's a $20 price difference in ddr motherboards and rdram motherboards (with ddr being cheaper).

ATI's drivers are like a broken faucet, they both keep on leaking...

lagger · May 26, 2002

good point, I hadn't considered that

lagger

Checking under my North AND South bridges for Trolls

P4 Motherboard Selection... aaaah!!!

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Splendid

Polypheme

Splendid

Polypheme

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Splendid

Illustrious

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Share this page