Need a motherboard for my P-4 2.2 CPU & the other devices that comes with the system

[wanchan]

This is my spec-sheet for my new computer. I particularly
appreciate your advice on your advice regarding the motherboard
that handles the components I have.
*****Did I miss anything and what else do I need????****

-=My Goal=-
In summary, except I do no game on my PC, I do want to build
multimedia-intensive system. The system, ideally, will be not a
platform on which I work, *but also* a *entertainment center* for
me. For example, I want to do video-editing, make my new system
an digital audio monster, and with the PC, control home-electronic
devices e.g. TV, DVD player, and CD player. Well, these are the
things I can think of for making the most out of the my new system.
Please advise, as well, on the things that I am not even aware of.
The above writing will never be wasted, because I think these are
the things I want to do with my new system, and I want to build my
new system that achieves the above goals.

The following are what I will have for the new system, all of the
which have been bought and in hand.

***CPU Intel Pentium 4 2.2 GHz with 845 Chipset, Socket 478***
1. IDE HDD drives (6): Western Digital 120/100GB, 7200RPM
2. Sony DVD-RW (1)
3. CD-R drive: PlexWriter 40x10x40 (1)
4. Floppy drive (1)
5. DVD drive: Liteon LTD-163 (1)
6. Radeon 8500 All-In-Wonder 2D/3D Video Card
7. Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum
Audio Card
7. USB 2 card, SCSI card, and FireWire card by Adaptec
8. 3com Network Card
- 3Com EtherLink XL 10/100 PCI TX NIC (3C905B-TX)
9. NEC MultiSnyc LCD 1850 18" display

To be purchased:
Lian-li PC-71 (Black)

Questions regarding the motherboard:
1. Since I will have 10 drives including IDE HDDs for the system? What special attention should be paid when choosing the motherboard? I have been informed that I at least need to have the motherboard with Raid-controlelr, and a IDE controller. Is this information correct? Please confirm. Thank you.
2. For an Intel Pentium 4 2.2 GHz (845 Chipset, Socket 478), what is the best motherboard (that money can buy)? Where can I obtain some of the latest and accurate reviews about the motherboard of this type of CPU?
3. Except Raid0controller and the IDE controller, what else do I need to have capability of adding limitless IDE/SCSI HDDs?
4. As indicated above, I have already purchase USB2 card and SCSI card seperately. Is the on-board type motherboard better? Please advise. Thank you.
5. Last but not least, what else do I need for the system. Money is not the object. I apologize if this comment offends someone. I have no intention to offend anyone, just being truthful.

Again, I thank you for your being generous and frank in answering my (clueless) questions.

wanchan
---
Email answers are directed to supergenos@yahoo.com
ICQ: 141556968

 

[zzzz]

You are not considering the 850 chipset? I think it would be better for your needs. Get either the Abit TH7-2raid or Asus P4T-E.

 

[senior guy]

First of all, I would also suggest getting an i850 chipset board for your needs. But since it doesn't sound like you have a desire to overclock, I would suggest an Intel board and in particular, the D850MV (perfect support for the Northwood and stable as a rock). Secondly, I find it very hard to believe that you truly 'need' 600 - 700 GB of on-line storage! What on earth for???

 

[wanchan]

<< You are not considering the 850 chipset? I think it would be better for your needs. Get either the Abit TH7-2raid or Asus P4T-E. >>



The CPU is already bought, no turning-back.

Thanks for the recomemdations.
1. Is the 850 chipset board compatible with my CPU. stupid question....oh, well.
2. Yes, heard ASUS P4T-E is real good. But how is MSI Ultra with USB 2 (have USB 2 card already though).
3. Regarding over-clocking. I dont know. This is my 1st time building a PC...... But as I learn (which I really do), I may consider over-clocking as well. For this reason, motherboard that can be over-clocked is sure the thing nice to have.

wanchan

 

[senior guy]

1. It absolutely is!!!

2. Intel D850MV for best stock performance. Asus or Abit for best (i850) overclocking performance. You will find arguements in favor of each one, but of these, only the Abit can be had with an on-board RAID controller.

 

[LuckyStrike]

The MSI bios will have to be flashed for your video card unless you luck out with a new revision, with that said the MSI is a great board.

With what you have to work with I would go for the 850 chipset & RDRAM.

If money is no object the motherboard question is a no brainer ASUS !!!!!

 

[wanchan]

<< 1. It absolutely is!!!

2. Intel D850MV for best stock performance. Asus or Abit for best (i850) overclocking performance. You will find arguements in favor of each one, but of these, only the Abit can be had with an on-board RAID controller. >>



Thanks, appreciate it.

a. What do you mean by "stock performance"?
b. Is there also RAID controller being sold seperately, or the on-board 1 the better?

wanchan

 

[senior guy]

a. Stock performance = running CPU, Memory, and FSB at default (specified) settings.

b. Of course you can buy IDE controller cards (e.g., the Promise UltraATA 100), but with all of the cards you now have, you may just run out of PCI slots!

 

[wanchan]

1 more followup:

I do need Infrared Connection on the board, since I have pocket pc that uses Infrared Connection.

wanchan

 

[senior guy]

Before concerning yourself with such frills, you should pay attention to my question (above) re: your need for 6 x 120GB HDDs (that could be a 'show stopper')! Especially considering the 2 DVD devices and CD-RW you now have - leaving but 1 HDD connection on your on-board IDE. What's wrong with off-line storage? For your application, you would make much better use of lots of RAM. Also, be sure to get a high-quality 400W (minimum) power supply for all of your devices!

 

[wanchan]

<< Before concerning yourself with such frills, you should pay attention to my question (above) re: your need for 6 x 120GB HDDs (that could be a 'show stopper')! Especially considering the 2 DVD devices and CD-RW you now have - leaving but 1 HDD connection on your on-board IDE. What's wrong with off-line storage? For your application, you would make much better use of lots of RAM. Also, be sure to get a high-quality 400W (minimum) power supply for all of your devices! >>



Thanks for pointing out another important thing i missed out--Power supply.
By "high-quality ", What are you specificly referring to? I am planning 1 of those 500W made by and sold at CompUSA. This because I previously all of power spplies are generally the same, as long as it supports P-4 class CPU. Anyways, thank you for you follow up on this. I want a 500W power supply.

To answer you question, I need thosse HDDs for storagint my digital media creations. I dont like offline storrage media. Because 1. xfer rate is generally slow. 2. I dont like all of those devices laying around on my table. I want to put as many devices as possible in the CPU case. Of course, I am considering your advice as well. It is NOT ignored

Thank you, again,

wanchan

 

[Jgtdragon]

If you decide to go for Asus P4t-E, I am selling one. Drop me a PM if interested.

 

[Buz2b]

Just an afterthought on your devices; having a DVD-R and a DVD drive is redundant. You would not need both. The only scenario I can think of is direct drive-to-drive copying. However, with all the storage you will have it is just as easy to copy to an image to the HDD and then record it. At least you can eliminate one IDE device that way. You might also consider rounded cables. With the amount of cableing you will be using, Standard ribbon cables will almost surely block any decent airflow in your case. With rounded cables you could help this quite a bit.

 

[dbal]

<< If you decide to go for Asus P4t-E, I am selling one. Drop me a PM if interested. >>



What are you buying instead my friend?

 

[senior guy]

wanchan~ I don't know which PSU manufacturer's product is sold under the CompUSA label, but if I were you, I wouldn't take the chance of getting a low quality power supply. There are several high quality supplies, including those made by Antec and Sparkle, but if you can afford the very best, visit pcpowerandcooling.com.

Getting back to the number of IDE/ATAPI devices you have on hand and plan on installing in one system, I can only say you are really begging for problems...

I shudder to think of all those cables in a case, and the resulting airflow problem, as Buz2b suggested. But even if you use round cables or dress the ribbon cables carefully, all of those IDE/ATAPI devices are sure to be throttled by the PCI 133MB/s bandwidth limit.

So unless you wish to rethink your 'true needs' for all of those online devices, I would say sell-off much of what you have and get a dual-CPU motherboard with 64-bit PCI slots, and put a SCSI card (e.g., the Adaptec 29160) into it and of course, use SCSI devices. Doing this would not only alleviate the aforementioned cable mess, it will handle concurrent accessing of multiple drives in a manner far superior to that of IDE. As I see it, the only other solution (given your HUGE online storage appetite) is to learn to use offline storage/archiving!

 

[astro]

Definitely go with the SCSI for the hard drive requirements. The Adaptec 29160 would be my choice.

As for power supplies, all power supplies are not created equally. pcpowerandcooling.com carries some of the best psu's you can find.

For the board, the 850 chipset with Rambus memory is the way to go to get the most out of your P4. I went with the Asus P4T-E.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Yikes! 600 Gb of on-line disk space...how are you going to back all that up?

Since "money is not the object", you might consider unloading your 100 FSB 2.2 Ghz P4 in favor of the 133 FSB 2.4 Ghz P4 coming out next month, and team it up with the ASUS P4T533 and PC1066 RDRAM. Here's a summary of the new board's features:

Supports socket 478 Pentium® 4 processors up to 2.4GHz and beyond
Intel® 850E memory controller chipset with ICH2
533MHz Front Side Bus Support
2 RIMM Sockets for up to 2GB memory PC1066/800/PC600 RDRAM
AGP 4X Slot
Dual Channel IDE ATA100/66/33 Support
ATA133 RAID controller
4 USB 2.0 Ports (NEC), 6 PCI Slots
ASUS® iPanelTM support
Infrared Connection
Wake-On-Ring, Wake-On-LAN
PC Health Monitoring ASIC
2Mb Flash EEPROM AwardO BIOS
ATX form factor

And here is a link to the full description of the board on the ASUS site.

Of course, there's always something better coming right around the corner. But it's worth considering...

 

[wanchan]

I am happy that many people are so generous in helping me out. Thank you!

First, one issue has to clarified in order to move on choosing my motherboard.

PC2100 DDR-SDRAM eliminates my choice of motherboards with i850 chipset
My initical considerations were:
(a) MSI Ultra 845 ARU
(b) ASUS P4B266
(c) ASUS P4T-E
(d)Intel D850MV

The memory I bought is PC2100 DDR-SDRAM (no return). Because (c) and (d) belong to i850 chipset, and support only RDRAM. I had to eliminate them both right way.

I did serious comparasion of (a) and (b), and I feel that (a) meets almost all of my needs.
e.g. Pros about MSI Ultra 845 ARU:
- ATA133 RAID supported by Promise PDC 20276
- On-board IDE controller
- 4 on-board USB 2
Cons:
- Since the motherboard is for i845, it does not support dual CPU. However, I do not have strong feel to have dual P-4 2.2 GHz at this moment.
- No dual RIMM support. But again that is difference between chipsets 845 and 850. Cant do anything abou it.
In summary, all of the cons stated above are not originated from MSI motherboard itself but from the difference in chipsets.

ASUS P4B266 offers none of the below the MSI motherboard offers, and does not meet my needs either.
- NO: ATA133 RAID supported by Promise PDC 20276
- NO: On-board IDE controller
This model ASUS offer additional features that are either redundant or has nothing to have with my needs. For example, 6-channel audio and On-board LAN. I have my LAN card already.
What I want the most is the On-board RAID controller and USB 2.

Still, I want to spend next 2-3 days doing intensive research and study of the motherboard that *trully* meets my needs the *best*. The below are some of my additional questions about the MSI 845 Ultra ARU.
(a) How many memory banks? I see only 3 there, but the specs say 4.
(b) How is the over-clocking capability this model provides?
(c) Infrared connection: It may well be that I missed it during my reading of the specs. Does this MSI model offer this?
(d) What is length of warranty MSI offers for this model?
(e) I bought Klipsch ProMedia 5.1 for my new system. Can I run this on this motherboard?

This is result I got from Intel's Motherboard Selector:

Thank you again for all of your educational advices.
1. I will use only Rounded Cables for my new system.
(a) But can I know what length of the cable I need to buy?
(b) What brand/model provides faster access rate?
2. I will use one SCSI HDD for running my W2kPro OS, and use other IDE HDDs for storage and servers. I only need about a SCSI HD of 10-15GB.
What brand/model would you recommend?
(3) What is the most efficient/safest way to assign all of my drives to the motherboard. Please note, I do need as much online-drive space as possible.
These are what I plan to use for the system. Total 9 drives.
1.
(a) 1 SCSI HDD
(b) 5 IDE HDDs (at least): 3 Western Digital 120GB, 1 Western Digital 100GB, 1 Maxtor 160GB
2. Sony DVD-RW: Will use *only* to burn DVDs
3. CD-R drive: PlexWriter 40x12x40: Wil use this burn CD-R. Since PlexWriter is the best, cannt skip this.
4. Liteon LTD-163 DVD Drive: Since Lite-On is the best for what it does, I need this as well.
**Based on the drive I plan to use, do I still need an IDE-controller?** If I do, I will get the Promise ATA100 TX2. Is this the best choice I can make?

Oh, as for Power Supply, I will get Enermax 550W [EG651P-VE (FMA)]

I am sorry for this very very long post. Thank you for your being generous of at least reading. And thank you for your time!

wanchan

 

[wanchan]

I am facing a dilemma--go with RDRAM or with DDR (1 GHz already purchased, and no return). I learned that RDRAM is lots faster, with brighter propect. Giving up a couple of dhundred of $$, and going with RDRAM, or compromising with the DDR I have.....This is my dilemma...

First, I wan to confirm:
The CPU I have is Intenl Pentium 4 2.2 GHz (Chipset: 845, Socket 478).
Can I *really* use a i850 chipset motherboard for this CPU?

- Am I going to waste a lot of my investment on the P-4 2.2 GHz CPU, if DDR memory is used?
- What about the future prospect for both RDRA and DDR?
- The bottom line, whether or not it is worth for me to throw away those 2 pieces DDR modules, and buy 1 gig of RDRAM?
please advise.

If RDRAM, I will get motherboard with i850 chipset. The candidates are:
1. Abit TH7II w/RAID
2. ASUS P4T-E

If staying with DDR,
I will get MSI Ultra845 -ARU.

Thank for advising.

wanchan

 

[IntelConvert]

Re. using round IDE cables, while they will help some with your case's airflow (compared to ribbon cables), you will still wind up with a spaghetti factory! ..And insofar as cable length, while I've seen round cables up to 30" long, anything greater than 18" (ATA's spec. maximum) will subject you to risks ranging from I/O slow-down (due to CRC errors) to outright data corruption. So I strongly recommend that you give serious thought to reducing the number of drives inside your case. Adding that SCSI boot-drive doesn't help the situation, and actually adds yet another cable (I'm sure what senior guy had in mind was replacing all your IDE drives with SCSI drives so that you could daisy-chain all drives on 1 cable)!!!

Re. your question about using your P4 2.2 with the i850 chipset, it is not only compatible with your CPU (on a socket 478 motherboard), it is IMHO the very best chipset for the P4 (Willamette or Northwood). especially if overclocking is not high on your agenda.

Re. your question about the 'prospect' for RDRAM vs. DDR, while there have been rumors about Intel dropping RAMBUS, even if it's true (and I doubt it), it wouldn't happen for a number of years to come. ...BTW, what's that nonsence about throwing out your DDR? You probably bought it at less cost than current prices, so you can likely sell it without taking too great a loss.

 

[senior guy]

<< Adding that SCSI boot-drive doesn't help the situation, and actually adds yet another cable (I'm sure what senior guy had in mind was replacing all your IDE drives with SCSI drives so that you could daisy-chain all drives on 1 cable)!!! >>

Exactly - with just 1 Ultra160 SCSI card and 1 SCSI cable he could connect up to 15 drives (nothing like having future growth potential).

Of course, the simplest (and far less expensive) approach would be for him to question his own 'true need' for all of those online drives and start an elimination process. Then maybe, just maybe, he might be able to get a 'pure' IDE/ATA solution that's doable!

 

[wanchan]

After serious considetions, I decided to go with DDR not RDRAM. After intensive research, Gigabyte's GA-8IRXP is the motherboard I found so far, I will buy it. It is better for me than any other motherboard I looked at.

Official specs
Tomshardware review and benchmark

Of course, if you think I shoul not be so blind about GA-8IRXP, because there is a better alternative, by all means, please let me know. I accept all kinds of advices, and your reviews about GA-8IRXP. Thank you.

wanchan

 

[senior guy]

Nothing really wrong with your motherboard choice, but good luck with that cabling nightmare!

 

[wanchan]

Thank you, senior guy!

1. I want to make this is absolutely sure, the chipset type. At the official site it says it is Intel 845 chipset, but At that Tomshardware's review, it says it is 845D. I want this motherboard 845D not 845. Any1 could confirm? I am going to call Gygagtbyte this morning.

2. Does Gygabyte make a motherboard with similar specs as GA-8IRXP's that has 4 memory banks not only 3?

Again, thank you for your immense help

wanchan

 

[senior guy]

<< 1. I want to make this is absolutely sure, the chipset type. At the official site it says it is Intel 845 chipset, but At that Tomshardware's review, it says it is 845D. I want this motherboard 845D not 845. Any1 could confirm? I am going to call Gygagtbyte this morning.

2. Does Gygabyte make a motherboard with similar specs as GA-8IRXP's that has 4 memory banks not only 3? >>


1. Since that board supports DDR memory, the chipset has to be an i854D. The original i845 only supported PC133 SDRAM.

2. I doubt it very much. There are very very few DDR boards with 4 DIMM slots and some of those have been problematic when all 4 slots are populated (it's a timing issue). To get around that problem, those manufacturers specified buffered (registered) DIMMs - when populating all 4 slots with double-sided modules - instead of the much more common unbuffered types.