Best P3 Mobo?

[Forbidden]

Well, it's been forever since I looked at Intel chipsets, since I've been using AMD for the past, I dunno, decade or so... but my boss bought a pair of P3 1.2ghz's CPU's, without motherboards. They were intended to go into a machine whose mobo only supported up to 850mhz chips. So now we need new mobo's, and I was wondering what people thought as the best server P3 boards.

Theses are going into mid-range ISP servers, so they need lots of ram, fast bus, video speed is irrelevant. But most of all, stability is king. What would you guys recommend?

 

[Vette73]

So I take it is will be a Dual board???

If so look at a board with a Via 694 DDR chipset. A single P3 can't really use DDR but Dual P3's can.

A good board that will do 4gig of DDR is the MSI PRO266TD. Also does not use the 686 southbridge, so much faster than most
It comes in two flavors, one with Raid and ethernet and one without. Gos for $122 or $142 shipped at Newegg.com

 

[Zap]

I hope those P3 1.2 CPUs have 512k cache each, because I've heard that SMP has been disabled on 256k cache versions.

 

[Forbidden]

No, they need to be single processor boards, as you mentioned, these are ones with 256k, uniprocessor only... my boss is pointing out a mobo with a SiS 630ET Chipset, is it any good? We don't need the highest performance in the world, just stability... It's really annoying that all the sites I normally go to for good info on mobo's only rate the top-end or brand-new stuff... nobody seems to have reviews of P3 mobo's in the past year :-(

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Forbidden
No, they need to be single processor boards, as you mentioned, these are ones with 256k, uniprocessor only... my boss is pointing out a mobo with a SiS 630ET Chipset, is it any good? We don't need the highest performance in the world, just stability... It's really annoying that all the sites I normally go to for good info on mobo's only rate the top-end or brand-new stuff... nobody seems to have reviews of P3 mobo's in the past year :-(

For a single chip board look at the Shuttle AV18 V3.1 board. It will support all P3's and can hold up to 1.5gig of PC133 Sdram. The board uses the Via 694t chipset. And you can find the board for around $60 shipped.

I would pass on the SiS for the P3. Now for a P4 the SiS648 is a wholenother story.

 

[Zap]

I'll second Marlin1975 with the Shuttle board recommendation. Newegg has it for $52 with $4 shipping. I have two of these boards (one in use, one currently homeless). This board is a basic, no-nonsense ATX setup. It can accept the cheapie 64x4 SDRAM - you know, the stuff on Pricewatch for $25 for 512MB? The RAM works, but difficult finding a reputable vendor that carries such stuff. The SiS 630ET has integrated video, if that's your cup of tea. Suitable for anything non-3D, and even some MINOR 3D gaming (yeah yeah, don't listen to anyone else, this CAN game, albeit at really really really low framerates). SiS even claims motion compensation for DVD decoding which points towards the SiS 315 video core, which is kinda-almost-but-not-quite Nvidia GF2MX-200 level as an add-on card (not sharing RAM, like it will integrated on a mobo). Basically, if you (or your boss) wants to use AGP video cards, get the Shuttle board (or any based on the VIA 694T chipset, Shuttle being cheapest). If you want integrated video, SiS 630ET.

One thing to watch out for... if you get the Shuttle board, make sure it uses the 694T chipset and not the older revision which uses the 694X chipset. The 694X will NOT take your Tualatin CPUs. The 694X Shuttle board is the AV18E and the 694T version is the AV18ET, but I've seen it misrepresented. Fortunately, usually called the AV18E when it's really the AV18ET, but just something to be aware of. Also fortunately, the ones Newegg has ARE the AV18ET, and they ARE reputable, and they ARE pretty much the cheapest.