Asus P3B-F or Asus CUSL2

[rosarian007]

I am looking for a motherboard for a second system, but I am having trouble deciding which of these boards to purchase. I will not overclock the CPU on this sytem, but I will overclock the chipset.(I want to use an EB chip if possible) I've read many reviews on-line and the majority of the reviewers say that the BX is still the king of speed and memory performance. My reasoning is why should I get a board that has on board audio and video that I will not use. In addition, I've read that there isn't a video card out now that can take advantage of AGP 4x or AGP 2x for that matter. The same logic goes for UDM100. This speed can not be taken advantage of yet, so why get it now when in the future there will be better motherboards out. For instance, when the Pentium 4 comes out you will need a new motherboard and RDRAM or DDR ram. I know you can never keep up with technology, but I believe that the BX board is the only motherboard out that can really use SDRAM well. What do you guys think?

 

[HD2GO]

I don't understand. How do you plan to overclock "only the chipset" and NOT the "CPU"?

In any case, the choice probably depends largely on how you want to use the system. I have both. They are both very stable and fast. However, the CUSL2 is not as "mature" a mobo as the P3B-F. It's a fact that given same CPU, same FSB, same memory bus freq, same components, the P3B-F still out runs the CUSL2 by a little. But, remember that the P3B-F has a 100MHz FSB and will take a great deal of "skills" to get all your components to run anywhere past 133MHz. While the CUSL2 will just cruise past 133MHz easily and not stress the PCI and AGP bus as much. More over, the ATA100 and AGP4x features are useful "future proving" unless you don't intend to keep the system more than 6 months.

I personally like the CUSL2 but the P3B-F would be a great choice if you want a totally debugged, rock solid system for running video editing apps using something like RT2000 for example.

Good luck.

 

[judgmentday1]

I'm building a new computer for a friend. He doesn't want overclocking. We got the Soyo 6BA+100 and so far this is an excellent mobo. Very nice!

 

[toph99]

with the cusl2, you can run the memory at 133 and have the fsb at 100, so depending on the chip you're getting, that can be an advantage

 

[han888]

cusl2 have my vote

 

[Shagga]

If you want an EB processor and baring in mind these run at 133MHz FSB and you don't want to o/c, why would you consider the P3B-F?

I have the P3B-F in my second system and rate the mobo very much. Why not just get an 'E' instead of the 'EB' as there is not that much difference in speed when comparing similarly clocked CPU's.

 

[subhuman]

cusl2 ... 133mhz is in spec. 512megs max ram though so if you need more ram, your only choice right now is the p3b-f overclocked on a 133mhz bus (if you get an "EB" chip, only the chipset/agp bus is tweaked, most new video cards can handle this w/o problems)

 

[Narse]

CUSL2 hands down

 

[CraigRT]

I'd say get the P3B-F if you don't plan to overclock, very solid very fast mo-bo.. problem free!!!

 

[rosarian007]

Thanks guys for the info. I will be using an 866EB processor on the P3B-F because I would like to run the system at 133FSB. That would be overclocking the chipset and not the processor.

Radeon 64MB VIVO Retail / 2 sticks 128 Mushkin Mosel Rev 2 /Adaptec 2940U2W / Soundblaster Live X-Gamer / 3COM Ethernet Nic card.

Anyone with a similar system please let me know your experiences using an EB chip on a P3B-F. Thanks.

 

[Shagga]

I dunno how good the radeon is insofar as running out of spec is, ya RAM will be fine but I'm not sure on your other hardware. Except that is Ya SCSI card, that will run at 44MHz.

 

[subhuman]

rosarian007

on the p3b-f, you are overclocking the AGP bus as well. also, you don't get chipset integrated AGP 4x Turbo support, and no ATA/100 hard disk support.

the CUSL2 also has the IDE bus *SEPARATE* from the PCI bus. this means that you can totally thrash on your hard disk, and it won't interrupt any data flowing through to your pci cards. this is really important, for example, if you're playing music through your audio card (mp3s) while loading the next level on a game. for me, this is what makes the CUSL2, or any 815 based board muuch better.

as a gamer, an overclocked p3b-f will give you 89mhz agp. this gives about the same bandwidth as "agp 2.7x" (source for misbelievers: tomshardware.com)