Intel P4 i845E and i845G Mobos

[OneOfTheseDays]

I recently purchased an Asus P4S533 Motherboard. I tried it out and it would not work with my memory for some reason, and kept saying "System Memory Failure" no matter what memory I put in there. We figured out that the board must be bad so i RMA'd it.

Now, I have decided to steer clear of all non-Intel chipset mobos. I want Intel, and I want something that works. I know the P4S533 is a good mobo, but it didn't work for me . Now I have Samsung PC 2700 RAM that is DDR 333 compatible and want to take advantage of it. From what I hear the i845e mobos don't support DDR333 officially. I hear that the i845G mobos do support it officially. Based on these assumptions, I now want an i845G mobo.

Looking at the reviews and threads around the internet, there is no one great board that everyone is raving about. I really liked the Abit BG7 and it looks like a solid motherboard with decent overclocking features, integrated graphics, USB 2.0, and DDR 333 support. I don't want a motherboard for extreme overclocking or extreme voltage settings. As long as I can get my Northwood 1.6A above 2 GHZ I'll be happy. Besides I only have a 300 watt Antec powersupply. My question is, should I go ahead and buy the Abit BG7, and will my powersupply work with the BG7(i am not running a lot of components or fans). Are there any other i845 G mobos that you guys suggest that offer better performance? Thanks in advance.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Well based on TuffGuys review of the board and the opinions of those at HardOCP forum, I have decided to get the BG7. This thing looks solid, TuffGuy is running a fully overclocked system with a 300 watt powersupply with no troubles. The only thing i have found bad is that one guy could not get the FSB above 150, due to something heat related on the mobo itself. Although i can't confirm this, i hope its not true.

 

[oldfart]

The 845G looks good. The only thing I question is how high it will oveclock. The integrated graphics on the NB may prevent it from hitting the higher FSB speeds that the 845D and 845E can hit. The (right) 845D and 845E boards still have 3:4 (but not 4:5) mem ratios. With this setup, you can do a 1.6A @ 2.4 GHz, DDR400 with the 3:4. If you get a good chip (better than the one I have), you can run it @ higher FSB, get nore MHz, and use the 1:1 ratio. I'm not quite sold on the 845G yet.