A Serious Dilemma

[JediGhent]

It's upgrading time for me here, and I really need some help. Right now I'm running a Abit KT7A /w an Athlon 1.4ghz and 384 MBs of PC133 SDRAM. The system is pretty damn solid, but it took a long while of tweaking and playing to get it so. However, I want to get something new, and head down the DDR route. The other thing is that I'm seriously considering going P4. Athlon is great and all, and while it's a pain in the ass at time, it's fast as all get out. However, lately it seems that Intel has the heads up, and seeing how I never really was that much of an overclocker, I want to go for more stability this time around.

After doing much research on the Pentium 4 Mobos and Chipsets, seeing how I've been diehard AMD and out of the loop, I've narrowed it down to the following motherboards:

Asus P4SX8
Asus P4S533
Abit SR78X

As you can see, I want to head the SiS 648/645DX route, because I've heard good things, and it seems stable enough. DDR333 RAM is a must for me, so obviously that rules out the current Intel chipsets. I really don't want to go with the 850E chipset, cause I'm not too keen on RIMMS, and I'm not so concerned about DDR400, so that really doesn't matter much. Until now, the main board I had my eye on was the P4SX8, but from researching and wahtnot, there appears to be problems with the VCore fluxuating, which makes me hesitant to buy it. The P4S533 seems nice enough, but doesn't seem as "top-of-the-line" as the P4SX8...not that it truly matters, but if I'm going to buy something to last me a while, I might as well get the best I can for the moment. As for Abit...eh...I'd rather not deal with them again.

So anyways, after days of researching I'm no better off than when I first started. All the stuff I hear about Intels being easier to deal with and more reliable than Athlons seems untrue, atleast after everything I've looked at lately. It took me a while to catch up on where current Pentium 4 chipset lie, but I seem to have a good grasp on it. So the issue is, for someone that wants to use DDR333 memory, wants good stability, and the ability to use the latest P4 processors, what motherboard does one buy?

Comments are more than welcome!

Thank you for your time.

 

[arifxtreme]

dilemma? yes
serious? no

Well, I'm sure you cant go wrong with Abit's new IT7 MAX2 (845E). Love that board. But if DDR 333 is REALLY that important to you, then Soltek's SL-85MR2-SL (845G) is THE way to go. It unofficially supports DDR 333, and is pretty good at it.

I'm a huge Intel fan, and would only swing to AMD, IF they can get their actual clock speeds beyond intel's, and I dont want to hear anything about "performance ratings"... lol. So anyways, I'd only go with Intel chipsets, coz they are like 110% stable. DDR 400 is pretty cool, but you'd have to head over to viavpsd.com for one. SiS 648 is awesome in its own right. But I wouldn't DARE use a non-intel chipset for my main rig.

Go with either the Abit or the Soltek... they got it all, performance, features, stability, and a good life.