need MB for P4, advice pls

[lorlabnew]

Hello,

I bought a P 2.4B bundled with cheap motherboard, which I want replace. I also already have 2 sticks of ValueCorsair 256MB CL2.5 PC2700.

I've been looking at either Asus P4PE-L ($135)/Asus P4PE-R($155) , or Intel D845PEBT2 ($145); I understand that I can do more tweaking with the Asus, but I really like the Intel's quality & reliability (have Intel D850 board, it still rocks great but no tweaking). What would be the better choice (if really is it possible to say, since I think both boards are fairly equal)? Are there any problems with either board?

Or should I wait for 2-channel PC2700 capable boards (now only 2-channel PC2100, right?) ? I want to get something rather fast, since my current board is really crappy..

Pls advice, thx
dave

 

[o1die]

Your choices are fine. Go with your budget and whatever features you desire. Another board to consider is the gigabyte 8sg667 with sis 648 chipset and agp 8x support ($95 newegg). No support for hyperthreading, but I doubt you'll need to upgrade anytime soon to the 3.06. I'm waiting for sis 655.

 

[lorlabnew]

thx for reply,

I think I'll get the P4PE-L; will have something to play with at least (more options then Intel) ; Intel boards are a bit boring (while I understand that this time a bit memory tweaking is allowed on this PEBT2).
I don't really need firewire, sata and other things right now; the $135 is pretty good deal. Hope the board works fine under Linux as well....

 

[halkebul]

You can go with a cheap Socket 478 board now but when it comes time to upgrade you'll be kicking yourself for not going with the Gigabyte 8INXP DualDDR motherboard (avail in 1-2 weeks). Cost a bundle but, hey, the motherboard is the centerpiece of the entire computer. If ya need an AGP Pro slot, not likely, go with the Asus Dual DDR board.

 

[halkebul]

Originally posted by: o1die
I'm waiting for sis 655.

The SiS 655 boards are being delayed for several reasons, including:

- They already had more orders for the 648 than they could fill, so they delayed it

- SiS decided to revise the 655 to support Hyperthreading

- During that revision time, Intel announced that the Prescott would support QDR800 FSB, or at least that the Springdale chipset would, which is designed for the Prescott. SiS plans to add that to the 655, but no news as to whether that will be included in this month's revision or not.

 

[oldfart]

If you want a board right away, get an 845PE board. There are lots of good ones out there. An Intel brand board is very high quality, but has no overclocking features. If you can wait for a few, the Granite Bay DC DDR boards will be nice, but will cost more.

 

[lorlabnew]

Thx for input and advice to all; I went to store yesterday, and after checking out both P4PE-L and D845PEBT2 on display there and comapring their parameters, I went finally home with Intel. I don't regret, since the board rocks; Sandra2003 gave me memory bandwidth under factory default settings, with rather slower Corsair ValueRAM CL 2.5 in both slots (512MB total) around 2550MB/s (I'm impressed, since my previous ECS board was around 1750MB/s).

The board actually allows some "safe" overclocking; the BIOS update yielded new chipset feature item called "Burn-in" mode, where you can raise overall performance up to 4% (or lower -2% heh), not much, but it's a big deal from Intel I'd say. Also there are settings for RAM tweaking, allowing aggresive timings if your RAM can stand it. So even with DDR333 this box surpasses (slightly) in memory/CPU/drive benches my older P 1.6A equipped with RDRAM.

I would like to wait for dual channel DDR board, but I couldn't live any longer with ECS in the case, it was way too depressing Anyway, I'll use the box under Linux mostly, so the performance will be sufficient and Intel's comaptibility is a major plus for me compared to other boards.

I will probably end up building another PC soon; there I'll go after "gaming performance" parameters and get the dual channel DDR, more overclockable/tweakable board.

thx again
dave