Is there a P4 i845 equivelant to the Soyo Dragon+?

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Looking for a board based on the i845 I guess.
Needs to have good overclockin'
Promise RAID 0 or 1 or 0+1
Built in LAN
Built in 5.1 audio would be a huge plus (not AC97 crap, something like the Cmedia 8738) but not required
4 DDR slots
Needs to be priced competitively with the Dragon+ or K7RA-R

The board exist?

 

[Athlon4all]

Yea, Soyo P4I Fire Dragon, P4S Dragon Ultra or Gigabyte 8IRXP.

 

[LoneWolf1]

SY-P4i Fire Dragon

<< DESCRIPTION
Intel ® 845 chipset; Socket-478 ATX Motherboard
IEEE 1394 Firewire on board
DDR SDRAM
RAID controller on board
Audio on board, with 6-chanel Hardware Audio
Graphic, Universal AGP Pro slot
Overclocking, setup FSB by 1MHz increment
Network, 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
PROCESSOR
Supports Intel ® Socket-478 Pentium 4
CHIPSET
Intel Brookdale(i845) chipset
Support 400 MHz FSB
SYSTEM MEMORY
Two 184-pin DDR SDRAM 2.5V DIMM sockets support up to 2GB
Supports DDR266
EXPANSION SLOTS
Six 32-bit Bus Mastering PCI slots (V2.2 compliant)
One AGP Pro slot (support 1x/2x/4x mode with 1.5V)
On Board Audio Subsystem
On board CMI 8738 Audio chip to provide 6 channels audio solution
Supports optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs
On Board Ultra I/O CHIP
Two RS-232 Serial Ports (16550 UART compatible)
One Parallel Printer Port (SPP/EPP/ECP mode)
One FDD port (supports 3 mode, 1.2/1.44/2.88 MB FDD)
Provides IrDA/FIR ports with optional cable for transceiver
Provides 4 USB ports (2*rear, 2*pin header)
Provides 2 IEEE1394 ports (1*port, 1*pin header)
Ultra DMA IDE Ports
Four independent channels for eight IDE devices (two for IDE Raid)
Supports up to PIO mode 5 & UDMA 33/66/100/133
Two PCI bus mastering ATA E-IDE ports
Boot-Block Flash BIOS
Award PCI BIOS with ACPI function
Supports multiple-boot from E-IDE/SCSI/CD-ROM/FDD LS120/ZIP
2M byte Flash ROM
Board Dimensions
Four Layer PCB, 30.5cm x 23cm(12" x 9.05")
ATX form factor
Enhanced PC Health Monitoring
On-board voltage monitors for +3.3, +5V, +12V, Vcore
CPU fan speed monitor
CPU temperature monitoring through flexible thermal sensor
DOUBLE STACK BACK-PANEL I/O CONNECTORS
PS/2 Mini-DIN mouse & keyboard ports
Two USB ports
One RJ45 connector
Two D-Sub 9-pin male serial port
One D-Sub 25-pin female printer port
Audio I/O: LINE-OUT x1, LINE-IN x1, MIC JACK x1
One Game port
FCC CLASS B AND CE EMI REGULATION COMPLIANT
PC 99 COMPLIANT >>

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Only 2 dimms. I've got 4x256 sticks I need to throw in there. That's the board I've been eyeing, just doesn't have more dimms 🙁

 

[Odoacer]

Good luck finding a board with more than two DIMM slots... I only know of one (the Shuttle AK31 and maybe later models).

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

^^

 

[QuestionsandAnsweres]

i845 only supports 2 dimms i believe.

sorry but u might be able to find a board with 3 but no way a 4

 

[gunf1ghter]

The i845 chipset doesn't support more than two DIMMS... any board which has more than two is "cheating" and you will be sacrificing some stability.

Some of the boards have three slots but can only address 5 "sides" worth of memory meaning that they will only see all three banks if all of the RAM is single sided.

If you need that kind of RAM capacity then you should either Egay your sticks for 512 sticks and suck up the difference or get something other than i845

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Yeah, I had a feeling the dimms would be a problem. I knew it was only supported for 2, and knew some cheated with 3. I'd rather not go through the hassle of having to buy larger sticks, etc. I'd really only like the 845 and that's it, not interested in any others right now. Guess I'll just hang with the Dragon+/XP1800 until the Clawhammer comes out 🙂

Thanks for the help guys.