Intel P4 MATX Motherboard questions

[Pariah]

I'm in the market for a P4 MATX board and through my searches I haven't really been able to find what I am looking for. Basically I'm looking for and Intel chipset board with 533MHz bus support, native DDR333 support (845GE,845PE), and onboard LAN. Onboard video and audio are not needed as they won't be used, but if they are there that's fine. The only board I could find available was the Intel D845GERG2LK, but at $136 at Newegg, that's a bit tough to swallow for an MATX board. Gigabyte has 4 board listings on their site (GA-8GEM667, GA-8GEM667K, GA-8GEMT4, GA-8PEMT4), and Asus has one (P4GE-VM) but I can't find any of them available anywhere. Anything I am missing that is available and is closer to $100?

 

[Pariah]

bump

 

[Remedy]

Hey Pariah, will this do here?. I haven't pick mine up yet. But you have my vote with this one.

 

[Pariah]

Looks good, any reviews anywhere? Any MATX roundup reviews anywhere? This seems to be a highly neglected area considering the large increase in HT PC's. How does the SIS651 chipset compare to the 2 above mentioned Intel chipsets? I found a good looking MSI board for $80. I prefer to MSI to AOpen and it's $15 cheaper, but if ths SIS chipset stinks I'll pay more for the Intel.

 

[hmsrolst]

I'm not familiar with these boards, but I go with your initial suggestion. A main reason to buy Intel CPU's is Intel chipsets. I had one SIS chipset board, admittedly about 5 years ago, and I wasn't happy with its stability.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Dude, don't base your opinions on 5-years outdated information. SiS is much much better now.

 

[Boogak]

Originally posted by: Lord Evermore
Dude, don't base your opinions on 5-years outdated information. SiS is much much better now.

I agree, my last two mobos have had SiS chipsets (ECS K7S5A w/ SiS735 and Gigabyte 8SRX w/ SiS645) and both have been extremely stable.

 

[CraigRT]

I have only used SiS mATX boards, and they have been fantastic. I really like that chipset.

only one i have used for the P4 is the P4S333-VM

good, cheap, stable mobo.

 

[optimistic]

I'm waiting for the SIS 655 to go micro. But I have no clue when that will happen though.

And hopefully, evenutally get it in a case like this AMS CF-2099

Taiwan Website
US Website

 

[Spikesoldier]

one board: soltek SL-85MIR-L

newegg no longer carries them, but heres a quick breakdown:

2 dimm, 200mhz, 266mhz, 333mhz dram speeds
400/533mhz bus jumper
OC OPTIONS very few other p4 uATX boards support this - no vcore adjustments in the bios, but has jumpers for ddr voltage and agp voltage
1agp
3pci
i845G

onboard audio+lan

mine without the lan cost 80 new, and this one might run you ~90 - ~100.

on a side note, i like this board because it has the p4 slot mounted horizantally, and air does not go up/down going up to the top of the case - hard to understand but you know what i mean right?


Good Luck!

 

[Kingofcomputer]

You could consider the D845GERG2L which is $10 cheaper if you don't need to use gigabit LAN.

 

[Pariah]

I decided to go with the MSI MS-6533EG-LM (SiS651). Everything seems to be working OK. Audigy 2 and Radeon 8500 both installed without issues and the system appears to be running without issues now.

"on a side note, i like this board because it has the p4 slot mounted horizantally, and air does not go up/down going up to the top of the case - hard to understand but you know what i mean right?"

Interesting point, but I'm using a desktop case. I'm not interested in OC'ing this system as it is crammed in a desktop case with 3 hard drives, an optical drive and a Live drive reverse installed with the cables running through the case leaving the whole setup quite cramped on the inside.

"You could consider the D845GERG2L which is $10 cheaper if you don't need to use gigabit LAN."

I looked at this one too, but the MSI is $57 cheaper which to me outweighs any differences in performance. I was more concerned with stability, compatability, and basic feature set and so far this board seems to be working out fine. Thanx for the suggestions.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

Yes, only SIS chipset based mb is under $100 at this time.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Thanks for posting the follow-up Pariah, I might be getting a P4 mATX for a home theater PC and the MSI looks like a good choice.