Best motherboard for P4 1.6A ?

herbage11

Senior member
Feb 10, 2002
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Looking to build a new computer soon. After the overclock and success stories on here I am almost positive I am getting the Northwood P4 1.6. I have looked at a few motherboards and like some of them but I want to know what people have with these P4's to overclock them so much. The mobo I like best so far is the Asus P4B266-C. Heard good things about it so far but I am curious what all of you are using with the P4's and what you recommend? Let me know please. Thanks a lot :D
 

Mavrick007

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2001
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Good choice! The Asus P4B266 is a good board for overclocking the 1.6A. This is a DDR board and I would probably use this one for DDR, but if you want to go RDram then it's a different story.
 

Challenger

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2001
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Just ordered a P4B266 and a P4 1.6A.wish me luck in getting it to 2.4ghz!Go for it and let us know how you do too;)
 

herbage11

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Feb 10, 2002
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Man I wish I ordered it already :(. Going to soon I hope....So you let ME know how YOU do and what you think. ;)
 

WheelsCSM

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Aug 18, 2001
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I just ordered the P4S333 and a 1.6a. I was torn between it and the P4B266-C. From what I gathered they both seemed to be approximately the same as far as overclockability and speed. I liked the 333 b/c it has an extra DIMM that you can actually use, and supports DDR333 (although a moot point if you overclock the 266). The clincher was that it was $14 less on Newegg (not that $14 is a lot I know). The 333 also has onboard sound, something the 266 doesn't (not that it's a big deal, just thought I would mention it). It had the features I wanted and the price was good. I think either one is a good bet. Just my 2 cents. Oh yea, I also read in a few places that the USB goes out on the 266 somewhere around 120 MHz FSB (I think). That's not a big deal to me, but I didn't hear anything about that happening in the 333 board.

Going to be a lot more people around here with these systems soon, guess that will be good for troubleshooting.
 

herbage11

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Feb 10, 2002
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OK thanks for the info Wheels. Hope you like yours. Have to let me know when you get it in and going.
 

Challenger

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Jan 29, 2001
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ASUS P4B266 INTEL 845 CHIPSET ULTRA ATA100 ATX FORM FACTOR 1xAGP(4X)/6xPCI/1xCNR/3xDDR W/USB2.0 & AUDIO Detail Specs (CPU TYPE:INTEL PENTIUM 4 - 478PIN)


This is the board I bought from MWave with the audio USB 2.0 and three DIMM slots with the DIMM being why I got it.Granted it is $35 more than the 2666-C but it will be another year till I upgrade again(maybe more memory) so I went for it.
 

Daovonnaex

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Dec 16, 2001
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To be honest, I feel that the ABIT TH7-II is the best choice, as it offers higher bandwidth due to its use of the i850 chipset. However, if your choice is DDR, then I would choose the Asus P4B266 as well.
 

dbwillis

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Mar 19, 2001
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I just got my Asus P4S333 last night, right now my PC is running a 1.6a at 2415mhz, 150 fsb, so far so good, temps are great.
Very stable so far
 

Daovonnaex

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Dec 16, 2001
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Remember that DDR SDRAM has trouble scaling to higher speeds these days. Also, as clock frequency increases on SDRAM (and DDR SDRAM), latency increases as well. On the other hand, RDRAM has no trouble scaling to higher speeds, and as clock frequency increases on RDRAM, latency decreases. Therefore, RDRAM is a superior overclocking solution. Since the prices of PC2100 DDR SDRAM and PC800 RDRAM are the same, there's no reason not to choose RDRAM, especially since PC2700 DDR SDRAM, especially the Kingmax 5ns type, costs the same or more. I'm running a P4 2000A at 3.2 GHz (160 fsb) right now using an ABIT TH7II-RAID, which is an RDRAM based mainboard. Just some food for thought.
 

Daovonnaex

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Dec 16, 2001
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By the way, for my P4 1.6A system, I have an Asus P4T-EM. It's at 150fsb (or 2400MHz) without any problems, and I'm sure I could get up to 160 or 170 fsb without any issues.
 

Daovonnaex

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Dec 16, 2001
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<< 150x16 for some reason comes up in the WcpuId as 2415

Heres a scren print
.LINKIFIED
>>

That's because your fsb is at 150.99, which is more like 151.
 

Lord Evermore

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
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Explain how latency increases with faster clock speeds on SDRAM. The only reason latency would increase is if you used memory that's rated for say, CL2 at 266 but that same module only handles CL3 at 333. That is not the same as the entire architecture automatically having higher latency at higher speeds (whereas RDRAM's architecture does get lower latency at higher speed by design), it's simply that the modules available right now are not rated for the same latencies at higher speeds. Once DDR333 becomes more of a standard and common item, CL2.5 or CL2 will be just as common as it is with DDR266 now.
 

Daovonnaex

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Dec 16, 2001
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<< Explain how latency increases with faster clock speeds on SDRAM. The only reason latency would increase is if you used memory that's rated for say, CL2 at 266 but that same module only handles CL3 at 333. That is not the same as the entire architecture automatically having higher latency at higher speeds (whereas RDRAM's architecture does get lower latency at higher speed by design), it's simply that the modules available right now are not rated for the same latencies at higher speeds. Once DDR333 becomes more of a standard and common item, CL2.5 or CL2 will be just as common as it is with DDR266 now. >>

I'm not referring to column address strobe latency, but rather, access latency (I don't know the technical term for it, so bear with me). Since I'm not an EE, I'll explain this the easiest way I can: examples. PC2100 DDR SDRAM has a latency of 200ns (remember not the latency of the memory chips themselves or the CL), whereas PC800 RDRAM has 300ns (hence SDRAM's advantage in office apps). PC1066 RDRAM has a latency of 230ns, and I believe PC2700 has 230ns as well. Now, I could be grossly mistaken here, in which case please correct me. Assuming even that I'm incorrect, the higher CAS latencies at higher speeds of DDR SDRAM are undesirable compared to the lower latencies of RDRAM. It has also become apparent that DDR SDRAM is reaching its limits, whereas RDRAM is not (though this point may be erroneous for this thread).