any reviews of the via p4m900?

[xyyz]

since i got this as part of a fry's combo along with the e6600. since i can't afford a new board with a different chipset at the moment, i wanted to see how this chipset performs. google hasn't yielded much beyond Via's old press release and a few other articles that describe the features.

anyone have any links or personal experience with this chipset and a core 2 duo processor, ideally with the e6600?

 

[secretanchitman]

should be fine for stock/general purposes...i wouldnt expect much overclocking out of it though.

 

[xyyz]

not really looking for OC'ing, but i want something stable. unfortunately, in recent past, via chipsets have been hit or miss for me.

 

[tcsenter]

I bought a Foxconn P4M9007MB-8RS2H over a month ago but haven't done anything with it. Still in the box.

According to Gary Key's quick summary of extensive tests performed for his unfinished review of numerous mATX boards and chipsets, boards using VIA's K8M890 put in a solid showing and would have been the 'overall leader' in price-to-performance ratio had the integrated VIA Chrome9 graphics been stronger against the NVIDIA and AMD offerings. The P4M900 is essentially the Intel version of the K8M890, both use the Chrome9 IGP and VT8237A Southbridge.

However, the P4M900 has a weakness that K8M890 doesn't - no dual channel memory support. P4M900 can only do single channel memory. This will probably bring the numbers down a bit for P4M900 since its competitors support dual channel. As to how much, all comparisons with previous generation P4 showed that single channel wasn't exactly a deal breaker.

Even while many were insisting that high-end Northwood and Prescott models with 800MHz FSB would be "crippled" by single channel, numerous tests using non-synthetic benchmarks showed that the performance of single-channel chipsets like Intel 848P and VIA PT800 lagged not more than 10% behind the fastest dual channel 865PE and 875P enthusiast motherboards on the market (most benchmarks were around 5%). Had they tested using 'average' 865PE and 875P motherboards instead of the top-performing enthusiast boards available, the difference would have been negligible.

Dual-core Intel CPUs probably benefit more from dual channel bandwidth than previous generation P4s, but I doubt that "crippled" would be any more a fitting characterization. I would be surprised if the difference exceeded 15% in most real-world things compared with competing dual channel IGP boards in the same class using a PCI Express graphics card instead of the onboard stuff. Using the integrated graphics definitely will result in a greater performance hit than single channel. Even a cheap PCI-E card like a GF6200 would perform significantly better than the IGP.

P4M900 supports up to DDR2-667, so you might as well go with at least DDR2-667 since it costs the same as DDR2-533. DDR2-800 would be the better choice if you plan to get a better motherboard in the not-so-distant future. You can get 1GB of DDR2-800 for about $50.00 shipped.

 

[Peter]

K8M890 actually doesn't even have a single RAM channel at all

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Peter
K8M890 actually doesn't even have a single RAM channel at all

Which is why the P4M900's weakness isn't shared by the K8M890 (nor any other AMD64 chipset). I didn't say that K8M890 supports dual channel, I said that P4M900 does not. Reasonable or unreasonable inferences aside, go pick on someone else!

On a related note, have you heard any rumors about the fate of the VT8251 Southbridge? It briefly made an appearance on a half-dozen different ASUS boards, then ASUS stopped using it over a year ago favor of the VT8237A on its newer models. There have been an interesting pattern of issues cropping up on the ASUS boards using the VT8251; PCI detection, resource configuration, function problems mostly under Vista but XP as well to a lesser extent.

 

[Peter]

The 8251 isn't too popular, right ... but that's more because it hasn't got /that/ much more to offer over the improved A and S versions of the 8237 - particularly now that many of VIA's northbridges have extra PCIE links as well.

 

[tcsenter]

I'm not sure popularity was a factor, ASUS didn't exactly position it to become popular.

ASUS chose the low-end K8M800 for the first motherboard (A8V-MX) to showcase VIA's long-awaited high performance Southbridge, when VIA's 'premium' K8T800 Pro, K8T890, and PT880 Pro were readily available. And not even a full-featured ATX motherboard with some bells and whistles, either, but a MicroATX board with your typical entry-level "All-in-One" feature set.

Over the next several months, ASUS released the following models using the VT8251, most of which were equally out-of-place or awkward (release dates are approx. based on the first release BIOS or the oldest BIOS listed on ASUS download pages):

P5V800-MX LGA775 P4M800 AGP (September 2005)
P5VDC-MX LGA775 P4M800 Pro AGP (October 2005)
A8V-VM S939 K8M890 PCI-E (January 2006)
A8V-XE S939 K8T890 PCI-E (February 2006)
K8V-XE S754 K8T890 PCI-E (March 2006)
A8V-X S939 K8T800 Pro AGP (April 2006)

P5V800-MX, A8V-VM, and P5VDC-MX followed the same pattern as the A8V-MX in being entry-level mATX boards with integrated graphics. The only models that could remotely be classed as 'premium' motherboards are the A8V-XE, K8V-XE, A8V-X.

The K8V-XE would have been an attractive board...had it been released 18 months earlier when Socket 754 was still dominant. The A8V-X was S939 but used the K8T800 Pro that had been shipping since June 2004! The A8V-XE was the only that was appropriate as a premium board for its time (S939 with PCI Express).

Only the P5VDC-MX and A8V-XE can readily be found in stock (e.g. Newegg), the others have not been readily available for some months now, suggesting ASUS decided to rapidly cycle them out.

How much interest could the VT8251 generate on entry-level or retro boards that aren't likely to be purchased by those wanting its newer features?

 

[Peter]

Well, when the 8251 came out, you /had/ to use it to get HD Audio. Now that's not true anymore. Neither is the two 1x PCIE links a reason to use this southbridge anymore, now that VIA's own northbridges tend to have extra links too.

 

[xyyz]

thanks for the info.

i purchased the balistics (sp?) tracer pc-8000 ahead of time, so i'm good to upgrade. unfortunately, there isn't much selection when it comes to decent mATX boards for the core 2 duo. the only one that comes to mind is the ait fatality board.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: xyyz
I purchased the balistics (sp?) tracer pc-8000 ahead of time, so i'm good to upgrade.

I guess that explains why you couldn't afford a better motherboard...

This motherboard may balk at that memory if the SPD is programmed with some whacked JEDEC-busting parameters, as is often the case with many high performance 'overclocking' memory lines. If so, you will have to manually input parameters suitable for DDR2-667 (if Crucial bothered to define any for DDR2-667).

 

[xyyz]

now i'm thinking i'll pause the build, ebay the MB for $25-30 and get that gigabyte mATX that everyone's talking about.

 

[tcsenter]

It should work fine with the RAM but it may not auto-configure the best settings, so you manually plug them in. I would grab the latest BIOS and give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.