Best MB for P3 933

[H20LUBY]

I know that a P3V4X was a good MB for this processor. is there a better, newer board I should use??

 

[techwanabe]

I have one, but I'd suggest you get a ASUS or ABIT mobo based on the Intel 815 chipset like the TUSL2 or ST6, respectively. Those are socket 370 mobos and are compatable with the PIII and Celeron cpus and take Tualatins too.

I just picked up an ABIT ST6 from Mwave.com for $61 plus shipping (total ~$68)

 

[birddog]

If you already have the P3V4X, I'd just stay with that. It is a real good board. Is your CPU a slot 1 or a S370? All the 815 boards are only s370. With the latest 4 in 1 drivers, the P3V4X will give you the same (or better) performance than an 815 board (& is not memory limited like the 815's).

If you are not into overclocking (a 933 is already on a 133mhz FSB, so there is not much overclocking headroom anyway) & need a board; my recommendation is the Tyan S1854 Trinity 400. It is the most stable PIII board I have wver worked with (more stable than any BX or 815 board). It has both a slot 1 and a s370 interface.

 

[Regalk]

Abit ST6 (Intel) or if you can find the MSI 6309 (VIA)
The Tyan has one problem which you should be aware of - it requires clearing cmos to get it to boot when ever changes are too aggressive in BIOS ot the power was killed before post. Also the socket is not as overclockable as the SLOT.

 

[H20LUBY]

Thanks for the info,,,my 933 is a 370

 

[birddog]

As I stated before, The Tyan board is not an overclockers board, but it is an extemely stable board. The MSI 6309 is a good board (stay away from the 'lite' version) as is the Abit VH6 (and VH6-II) if you are into overclocking.

 

[Engr62]

birddog,

What video card did you use with the Tyan Trinity 400?

The reason I ask is because I have both a P3V4X system and a Trinity 400 system. In both systems, I have had an All-In-Wonder Radeon 32 Mb DDR AGP, a Radeon 32 Mb SDR PCI, and a Voodoo3 3000 16 Mb AGP at one time or another. The Voodoo3 performed equally in both systems (when using the same CPU), but the two Radeons performed much better in the P3V4X than in the Trinity 400. For example, in Quake 3 with at a resolution of 640x480x32, the AIW Radeon performed about 5% better in the P3V4X than in the Trinity 400. Additionaly, in Quake 3 (640x480x32), the Radeon SDR PCI performed about 22% better in the P3V4x than in the Trinity 400.

The 5% difference is no big deal, and is somewhat expected. However, using the PCI card, the 22% difference is not really acceptable since the SDR PCI version of the Radeon is already a poor performer.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

 

[birddog]

I build a bunch of systems with the Tyan board. When people came to me to build a system (when the PIII was still king) & they were not extremely computer saavy (hardware wise) or needed something extrememly stable (CAD machines, small business servers, etc..), I'd use the Tyan board for them because of the stability (I never found a BX or i815 board more stable than the Trinity 400). For people who wanted to overclock & play around, I usually used an Abit VT6X4 (or VH6) since the Tyan board is not a good overclocker.

Back then I was mostly using voodoo 3 cards, TNT2's or GeForce 256 cards. I never used an ATI card till last year (Until the Radons, there were no ATI cards I liked well enough to use & they never had decent drivers till just recently). The Abit & Asus boards would generally give a little better performance in benchmark programs (not noticible in real world applications), but for most people the extra stability was worth it. I do not think I ever used a PCI video card in one. I'd guess I built 20-25 systems with the Tyan board, 5-6 with the P3V4X, and 10-12 on the Abit VT6X4 (& VH6 -- socketed version). My main rig back then had each of them in it at one time or another (I had the Trinity 400 first, switched to the P3V4X, then to the VT6X4. That was still my main machine till a few months ago till I went to an XP 1700 DDR system -- I was getting jellous that every machine I built for other people blew mine out of the water.) The reason I switched away from the Tyan board is that I got into hardcore overclocking & needed a board that could do it. As good as the P3V4X was, I found that the Abit VT6X4 was much better. The 2nd ISA slot was also a added benefit since I had a hardware modem & a soundblaster AWE64 gold soundcard. Since the KT133a chipset came out(and now the KT266a & KT333), I mostly build Athlon systems now (best price/performance ratio now), so I have not built a new PIII system on one of these boards for about a year and a half or so. I have occasionally picked some up on the used market & build inexpensive 'budget boxes' on them (again, no higher end video cards). I think the higeset end video card I have put in one is a GeForce 2 GTS DDR.

One 'quirk' that board has with the AGP controls is that you had to manually set the AGP driving value to 'CC' in the BIOS for best performance (this per the Tyan website). I think later BIOS revisions have corrected this.