Which Motherboard?

[neteng1958]

Hi All,
I'm getting ready to upgrade my system and after reading all the articles and posts I can I'm still unsure as to my best choice for mainboard. I mainly play RPG's like Morrowind or Dungeon Siege as single player with an occasional Shooter like MOHAA as single player. I don't plan on overclocking so stability and reliability is my primary concern. I normally upgrade my system every 2.5 to 3 years.

A.) Asus P4B533V with 512 meg of corsair CAS 2 333 DDR RAM.
This is only going to cost me $254 instead of $453 going the 850E/Rambus route. I see all the results favor the 850E combo but in the real world will I truly notice a big enough difference in speed to justify the $200 difference in cost.

B.) Gigabyte GI-8IHXP or Asus P4T533-C or Intel D850EMV2 w/2 sticks Kingston 256 meg PC 1066 16 bit. If this is only way to go, which of these is best choice for most reliable board. I see that Toms prefers GI-8IHXP but most places I see that test hardware or sell high end gaming rigs use the P4T533-c or the D850EMV as their board of choice. (Also from what I have seen, there is no real advantage in trying to use the on-board RAID controller on the GI-8IHXP in a RAID 0 set up. I can obtain very comparable results using a single WD J model HD.) If the Intel board is most stable but slowest, again is it going to be fast enough over the DDR 333 solution to justify cost?

Lastly I will be using the ATI Radeon 9700 as my video card and a P4 2.4 Ghz 533 FSB as my CPU. Than

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by neteng1958 on 10/01/02 12:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

I ordered the GA-8IHXP and Kingston PC1066. I don't buy on a whim, this decision has been 9 months in the making.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[ejsmith2]

No.

Not playing games you're not. At 1024x768@32, that card will lockout long before that processor will on "shooters". Dungeon Siege and Morrowind are tougher on the cpu, but you're ok with a 2ghz+ processor.

I'd go with the 333, or hell, even the 400's.

P4's @ 3600Mhz ()wNz J00 4LL!!!!!!

 

[neteng1958]

Thanks Crashman. I value your opinion as the information you provide is usually good common sense. Do you feel the performance difference between the RDRAM and DDR 333 is enought to justify the $200 cost difference? Maybe I should wait for the 845 GE to come out. Also any opinion as to why most high end system builders and many of the test setups I see use the ASUS or Intel 850E boards. Does Gigabyte have any more or less stability problems than anyone else? I tend to agree with what you said about researching the technologies and prefer not to buy something until its been out about 6 months to see how things shake out and to lets the BIOS and driver sets get a little more mature. Thanks for your help. I'm your #1 fan LOL.

 

[Crashman]

Probably not worth the price difference to most users. It's around 5% or slightly higher. It increases with overclocking. I like overclocking. I'm looking for a 15% or higher gain by running it at something faster than PC1066 speeds.

Oh, on the brand thing, I think some places just like Asus.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[Mowgly]

Sweet I was just about to post on which is better Intel i850 or 850E as normally I like Abit boards but they don't do a 850E 1 yet So which is better on stability, performance.

Thinking of getting pc1066 and a P4 2.66 but if my budget will stretch a 2.8(yeah i wish ).

Which is the better corsair or kingston as the price is relatively similar???

Also which vid card would be betterGF4 4600 128Mb or a 9700Pro??? I've heard good things and bad things of the Ati board, the games I'll be playing most are Jedi knight2 and Warcraft 3 and ST Armada 1 and 2 (Single and multiplayer (mainly multi though))

 

[groth2757]

Crashman will you be using the onboard audio on that board?

:tongue: <font color=red>Cut the mullet!!</font color=red> :tongue:

 

[Crashman]

I'm going to give it a try. I even gave the AC97 on my SA6R a try.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[groth2757]

If you can, let me know how you make out with the audio. I'm thinking about getting the same board. Thanks...

:tongue: <font color=red>Cut the mullet!!</font color=red> :tongue: