ASUS P4G8X & GA-8INXP System Configuration and Price Leads on Components

[Alphi]

It is my understanding that the P4G8X and GA-8INXP deliver 4.2GB/s bandwidth which is balanced with the 533MHz FSB with dual-DDR226 memory. Is it necessary to buy 4-1GB modules of DDR266 to achieve a bandwidth of 4.2GB/s with the P4G8X? Can we use 2-512MB DDR266 modules and still achieve a bandwidth of 4.2GB/s? Please elaborate on any configurations that would achieve a bandwidth of 4.2GB/s. Thanks!

In my first attempt to build a PC by myself, I have had to rely on what I have been told by the manufacturers (ASUS, GIGABYTE, Intel, ATI, Plextor, Lite-On, Maxtor, etc.). After several weeks of combing the Web for info about a comparison between the P4T533 and the P4G8X I have come up with a few redundantly supported recommendations regarding compatibility and performance issues. Here is what I have been told so far - take it for what it is worth:

Recommended components:
Memory: Corsair, Kingston, or Samsung DDR266 CL2.5 512MB (double-side) - Recommended by ASUS
Video Card: As far as the manufacturers (ASUS, ATI, nVidia, know, every 8X and 4X tested with this motherboard has worked with few (easily remedied) or no complications (sounds like famous last words to me, but that is the score as I was told).
Hard Drive(s): Maxtor Ultra Series Hard Drive Kit (7200 RPM, 8MB Cache, ATA-133) has been recommended as one of the best per $ spent. There are only 4 ATA connections available on the P4G8X (2 S-ATA with parallel to serial converter and 2 UDMA ATA 100/66). This means that you can only have 2 hard drives connected in RAID 0 or RAID 1 (not 0+1), your CD-RW connected to one of the ATA-100 ports, and your DVD-ROM connected to the last ATA-100 port, but there is no way to achieve RAID 0+1 on the P4G8X...right? There are six available on the GA-8INXP (2 S-ATA with parallel to serial converter, 2 UDMA ATA 133/100/66 and 2 UDMA ATA 100/66). Additional S-ATA or ATA-133 RAID controllers can later be added to any of the 5 PCI slots on the P4G8X, however transfer speeds are limited to 133 MB/s by the PCI bus and parallel to serial conversion of the Silicon Image 3112A controller. Therefore, we should not expect to swap out our ATA-133 drives for true S-ATA 150 drives and achieve 150MB/s transfers without RAID 0 More info on today's RAID controllers at Tom's Hardware Guide

Once again, guys, I am just starting into this hobby, so please correct me if any of this information is inaccurate. Thanks! Here is my proposed system:

Processor: P4 3.06GHz HT 533MHz FSB (balanced with dual-DDR266 memory?)
CPU Fan: I can't find any for this processor. Know of any? Please suggest!
Motherboard: P4G8X or GA-8INXP
Case: Kingwin KT-436BK-WM (5 80mm fans enough for overclocking?)
Power Supply: Enermax EG651P-VE FMA
Memory: 2GB Samsung 1GB DDR266 PC2100 184 DIMM CAS2/2.5 Registered ECC (model# M381L2923MTL)
Memory Heat Spreaders: Please suggest!!! Do I need them for overclocking? Yeah, I am really that dumb!
Video Card: ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon 9700 Pro
Audio Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Hard Drives: 2x 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 in RAID 0...I guess. Is this "safe"? What happens when I reformat?
CD-R/RW: PlexWriter 48/24/48A E-IDE
DVD-ROM: Lite-On LTD-163 - Please suggest!

 

[BigfootDoug]

The ASUS P4G8X's E7205 chipset does not support registered ECC memory according to Corsair's tech support. Since you intend to overclock, Corsair recommends their CMX512-3200C2 (400 Mhz) 64x64 3-3-3-6-T1 modules. Their CM72SD512-2100 modules will run in the motherboard at a reduced price, and reviews I have read indicate success in pushing these. The catch is finding an online vendor that sells these particular modules. It took me about an hour to find one that carried them. I finally found them at NeutronExpress.com, one of the higher level Corsiar online partners.

I am building a Home Theater PC, and the 9700 Pro has had a lot of issues with many motherboards, especially with Shuttle and SIS chipsets, as has the Immersive Holo3DGraph card that emulates the $7000 Faroudja box. Both have been reported as more stable with the Intel chips, and I am praying that the AGP 8X support helps the ATI card, as bandwidth is a major issue in this configuration. By the way, the ATI card is VERY power hungry, and gave no output in a tower configuration with multiple drives and a 300w power supply. I changed to a 450w unit and voila - image appeared. Good luck with your build. I am eagerly awaiting arrival of the motherboard - my vendor expects them in Friday.

 

[Alphi]

BigFootDoug,

DOH! Thanks for the correction and tips! Here is the link to the Corsair RAM GUY

I would be very interested to see what configuration you have planned for home theater, Doug. Please post it here if you get a chance. Thanks again!

 

[halkebul]

Hello. The Hardware Industry seems to have mislead you in many respects. Let me provide you with a much better product list:

Gigabyte 8INXP Limited Edition motherboard: Dual DDR support; Crazy overclocking options; Dual Power System (DPS); Serial ATA RAID; IDE RAID; External Serial ATA device connectivity; Gigabit LAN; color-coded front panel connectors - approx. $220 (avail in 1-2 weeks)

Intel Pentium4 2.4B processor *with C1 stepping* (make sure ya get the one that says C1 stepping next to the processor description) RETAIL $211

Enermax EG465P-VE(FMA) 431W power supply $91

Lian-Li PC-65 USB-B (Transparent window & Silver Color) $168

Western Digital 80GB Special Edition Hard Drive $114

Two 512MB Crucial DDR333 Cas 2.5 Memory modules $142x2=$284

Lite On 48x12x48 CDRW Model LTR-48126S $58

LITE-ON LTD-166S16X DVD ROM Drive $46

Simply increase the FSB to 170MHz (may have to bump up the CPU vcore a little at a time to get it to POST, lock the PCI/AGP buses at their default frequencies 33MHz/66MHz respectively) in the BIOS and you'll be cruisin at 3.06GHz!!! Because this motherboard doesn't contain firewire, if you require firewire, you can get the GWC firewire PCI card for $18. 1GB of memory is plenty of memory - no need to go higher. Special Edition hard drive without question. Onboard audio should be sufficient unless you get some $220+ speakers that you just would not hook up to onboard audio. In that case, I would choose the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz ($62) over the audigy card. No need for RAID here, as far as I can see.

vendor(s): newEgg.com, atacom.com (processor)

 

[Alphi]

halkebul,

Case:
I was really torn between Lian-Li, Enermax and Kingwin cases. What are the advantages of the Lian-Li case?

Motherboard:
I really like the Gigabyte board too. Frankly, I was ticked off to see that the 3rd and 4th connections on the P4G8X were ATA-100 rather than ATA-133 and RAID 0+1 support is also neglected. I read that its performance at is less than the ASUS P4G8X without overclocking. Click here for more info. However, when it is overclocked, it may be a better performer. I am not a pro at this, so you tell me after reading this.

Overclocking:
My problem is that I have never overclocked a pc before in my life and expect to spend somewhere around $2000 - 3000 on this system. At that price, I would rather not burn it up until I need some extra speed to increase the life of the system . There are no applications on Earth right now that would require that much speed anyway, right? So, the question is whether to spend alot of money now on cutting edge technology, such as a P4 3.06 processor with the hyper-threading that the Granite Bay was designed for (and we will pay for that too even if we don't use it), or continually upgrade/replace, right? Is it worth it to by a Granite Bay board and a non-HT processor?

Firewire:
I am also confused about the addition of a firewire port to the PCI bus. Doesn't the PCI bus greatly hinder the speed of firewire? Wouldn't we just be better off using USB 2.0 ports in that case and forget the firewire?

CD-RW:
Wow that is cheap! Does the performance of the Lite-On CD-RW compare closely to Plextor? Maybe Plextor isn't worth the extra $$, eh?

Hard Drive & RAIDs:
Lastly, what are the advantages of WD SE drives over Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9? They both have an 8MB buffer, but you get an extra 33MB/s theoretical transfer from the Maxtor drives due to ATA-133, right? They are also cheaper from what I have found so far. True? In regard to RAID, I would like to tinker with an entry level server/home theater/gaming system! lol Can it be done? If so, would I need RAID? What about next year?

These questions are meant as questions, and your suggestions are appreciated. Please comment. I would especially like to hear more about overclocking methods and cooling. Thanks!

 

[halkebul]

Hello again.

- I see much more positive user feedback from Lian-Li cases.

- Here's a more recent review of the gigabyte 8INXP motherboard. Very informative.

- USB 2.0 over firewire as it is faster. So, ditto on that. If you don't require a firewire port, then you don't need the firewire PCI card.

- Plextor drives are overpriced. Go for the lite-on drive.

- ATA 133, or serial ATA for that matter, holds no performance advantage over ATA 100 drives because it is held back by the current PCI. Notice that basically only one company came out with ATA133 drives?

- Hyperthreading is definetly not worth that much money. Helps in some benchmarks ... hurts a little in other benchmarks, especially in game benchmarks.

 

[Alphi]

Glad I asked, halkebul! Thanks! I noticed in the AnandTech review of the P4G8X and GA-8INXP that they turned the settings down on the GA-8INXP to make everything even in the non-overclocked benchmarks. Do you think that this effected its performance greatly? I am all but set to change my mind toward the Gigabyte mobo.

P.S. I just found out that the 8INXP does not include AGP Pro. It has a normal AGP slot. Anyone kn how this will effect video options?

 

[halkebul]

Originally posted by: Alphi
Glad I asked, halkebul! Thanks! I noticed in the AnandTech review of the P4G8X and GA-8INXP that they turned the settings down on the GA-8INXP to make everything even in the non-overclocked benchmarks. Do you think that this effected its performance greatly? I am all but set to change my mind toward the Gigabyte mobo.

P.S. I just found out that the 8INXP does not include AGP Pro. It has a normal AGP slot. Anyone kn how this will effect video options?

One motherboard manufacturer may bump up the FSB a little to gain a small performance advantage. The two boards perform at the same level when operating at identical FSB speeds. The Gigabyte board is superior, no doubt. Better overclocker and very impressive and innovative feature set.

AGP Pro is an extension of the AGP4X specification that is mainly designed to deliver additional electrical power to graphics cards. The AGP Pro definition includes an extended connector, thermal envelope, and mechanical specifications for cards, I/O brackets, and motherboard layout requirements. It is designed for professional level video cards, such as the Intergraph/3Dlabs Wildcat 4220. So, unless you're using a professional graphics card, which you are most-likey not, don't worry about the AGP Pro issue.

 

[kariokabrs]

i wanna say thank you to help a lot people! Even me was wondering when they will put the mobo GA-8INXP on the streets market. BUt, why they choose the PC 2100 for dual channel ? Could be better than that ? or were they afraid in leaving so far behing the rambus memory ? well, i'd like to ask you something: i'm have the mobo SY-P4X400 from SOYO, platinum edition, with a 2.26 pentium 4, 256 mb cls 2.5 crucial, 133mghz ata maxtor HD on RAID 0,Xtasy geforce 4 440 agp 4X, under XP home edition, and a antec case with 350pw. I am running on 150 FSB and 1.55 v cpu voltage, giving me a clock speed of 2.55 mghz. i tried to go beyond that, but i couln't going throught the POST after using my computer for a short time. DId i miss something ? DId i choose the wrong cpu volts?i didn't understand too ,that part when you said that we need to set the PCI and AGP buses to their default, 33/66 mghz. where can i do that on my bios ? thank you so much.

 

[8080baty]

I am building a new machine for myself, some research is in this list, enjoy

cost shipping totals
Gigabyte GA-8INXP $230 - $270 ? $270.00
Pentium 4 (3.06GHz, 512KB, 533MHz, Socket 478) $668.00 $7.49 $675.49
Qty 2 - 1Gb Non ECC Unbuff PC2700 DDR333 $798.00 $12.95 $810.95
Qty 2 - Maxtor 80GB ATA/133 7200RPM HD $201.80 $0.50 $202.30
Panasonic LF-D211V 4.7/9.4GB DVD-RAM/CD IDE $179.95 $11.90 $191.85
Tyan Radeon 9000 Pro AGP 64MB DDR 2D/3D w/ TV Support $77.18 $9.95 $87.13
Clear Actylic Case ATX 5 - 80mm fans holes (unasembled) $129.99 | $129.99
Qty 5 - 80x25mm Blue LED Fan $17.45 V $17.45
Vantec Nextus Multi-Function Panel $36.99 $19.17 $56.16
Fortron 400W (PFC) ATX P4 Quiet PS $65.00 $5.78 $70.78
$2,512.10

 

[Alphi]

I scrapped this message, because of serious reconsideration of the motherboard and a couple other components after reading the comments made by other contributors to our thread. Thanks for the help, guys. Let's hammer out our grievances on the motherboard issue HERE.

One thing that I haven't been doing very well is adding on links and prices. Thanks to those of you who have included prices, I have saved a few $$$. Once I have finalized my search, I will post more links to retailers.

 

[8080baty]

sorry add:

Syba IEEE 1394A AGERE 3+1 port PCI Card cost $16.49 shipping free http://www.computer123.com/home.asp

http://www.syba.com/us_product_browse.php?site=sy&action=details&pid=146

I really like the internal "REAL" 1394 connector it works great with the Nexus Multi-Function Panel

http://www.ipkonfig.com/Reviews/Misc/Vantec-MultiFuncPanel/


checkout

http://www6.tomshardware.com/howto/20021021/index.html

a power supply review from 10/21/2002 note that Fortron makes the Verax supply!

 

[kariokabrs]

No! AGP 3.0 or AGP PRO with 8X support, wont make any difference for a home user . Unless you wanna use a professional graphics cards that needs a extra power to get its total performace. By the way, there is no game avaible on the market the support 8X. Even the new game DOOM 3-next summer (2003), doesn't request 8X graphics cards. So do not worry you about that, even don't make your mind a mess. Just think for now, AGP 4X is enough to play the latest games, even the games that are coming in! By the way, both ASUS P4G8X ( ASUS P4G8X deluxe too), GIGA-BYTE GA-8INXP use hte new AGP 3.0 . If you wanna try a good motherboard with AGP PRO with 8X support, try the SOYO PLatinun Edition, P4X400 DRAGON ULTRA, supporting 400mghz DDR memory, without those little problems that a lot mobo are getting using that 400 mghz frequency for DDR memory. MAXIMUM PC- January 2003 edition.

 

[Alphi]

BigfootDoug, halkebul and kariokabrs,

Which video card would you suggest for a CAD system? Are there trade-offs between gaming / home-theater / and CAD ? If so, what are the trade-offs and fixes? Thanks once again.

 

[8080baty]

I chose the:

Tyan Radeon 9000 Pro AGP 64MB DDR 2D/3D w/ TV Support $77.18 $9.95 $87.13

because of it's low street price (the 9500s & 9700s are going for the bigger bucks)
but the Radeon 9000 Pro supports 1600x1200 well, see:

http://tech-report.com/reviews/2002q3/tyan-g9000pro/index.x?pg=5

fyi tyan product web page:

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/g9000pro.html

I too am going to run CAD apps on my new (linux) 8INXP powered machine
so why do I care:

http://www.samsungelectronics.com/monitor/mfm/241mp.html

which would cost more that my new machine!