am I being too elitist, and is CSA worth it

[grepcomputers]

I'm looking for a mothboard to replace my failing ASUS P4S533.

The contenders (prices at newegg):
ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe ~$117 - i865PE
Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000PRO2 ~$88 - i865PE
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe ~$180 - i875P

I am trying to squeeze out the most performance from this purchase, but not at the expense of reliability.

The P4P800 board is nice because it is cheap, and apparently (according to an anandtech article) ASUS has got some kind of PAT-like technology for their i865PE motherboards. However, it doesn't have the gigabit LAN on the CSA bus (forgive me if I am misusing the terminology), instead having it share the PCI bus. I read somewhere else in these forums that the Gigabyte board uses the marvell gigabit LAN on the CSA bus, but I am concerned that it will not have the overall performance or reliability of an ASUS board. My other option, then, is the ASUS i875P board, which is a bit more than I want to spend.

I am only on a 100baseT network at home, but I use a file server to store all my music and video, so there is always a good deal of network activity going through the NIC (I guess on average 25% utilization). I was wondering if I really would see any kind of performance difference with a NIC using the CSA bus.

So, am I being too elitist in wanting to stick with an ASUS board (I've had a very good experience with them), and am I actually going to notice a performance difference between a CSAed NIC vs. one hanging off the PCI bus?

thanks...

 

[misnomer]

You know, if you're looking for S478, go cheap. The prices are coming down due to Socket T taking over, and there's no sense in spending $100 on out-of-date technology. I have an AOpen MX4SG-4DL with the Intel i865 chipset. It's got Gigabit LAN and SATA, plus all kinds of other goodies. I got it at Geeks.com for $38, so go with that.

 

[grepcomputers]

Actually, I'm looking at the intel D875PBZ now. $83 on newegg, not bad at all. And it should be quite stable. (I don't overclock and have no desire to.)

 

[misnomer]

That's cool. More than I would spend, but if you're comfortable with that, go for it. I'm not an OC'er either. I have no desire to do that. My board works flawlessly, and to be very honest, was the simplest board I've *ever* installed, and I've been building systems for 8 years.

I never worry about brand very much when I'm board shopping. I've had bad and good luck with just about every board manufacturer out there. For example, I bought a very cheap ECS board (typically a "crappy" board manufacturer; cheapie boards) and never once had a problem with it. It ran a S462 Athlon XP 2600 for a year, and worked perfectly. I also spent almost 200 dollars on an Asus K8T800 board when A64 came out, and had nothing but problems with it. Asus is probably the most reputable manufacturer out there, too.

Never underestimate price, nor overestimate brand name on boards. Find the best for your situation.

 

[grepcomputers]

Well, the intel board is actually the cheapest that I can find with the one option I really want - gigabit lan on the CSA bus, so it's off the PCI bus.

 

[misnomer]

Oh I see, I didn't even consider that part above, my apologies. Yeah, if getting that off the PCI bus is important, I'd go with that one.