Need recommendations for P4 system

[Serville]

Need a quick recommendation for Pentium 4 board system with DDR.
I'm avoiding Asus for its price right now, so I need better/cheaper options. Currently considering mobo from MSI, Gigabyte, or Abit. I just don't exactly which model. I'm eyeing ABit BD7 for its reasonable price, but I'm not sure if you agree.

I also have some questions. Leaving Intel too long for AMD system, I lost track at the moment.

What chipset option do I have for DDR ? VIA's or Intel ?
Is Intel 845D chipset is the latest DDR offering ?
What's the difference between Socket 432 and 478 for P4?
I'm hearing a lot about Northwood chipset. Which one is it ? Socket 432 or 478 ? Thanks

More:
- Is it realy better to get DDR system or RDRAM for P4 ? I see I only have few options from 2nd-tier mobo manuf for DDR system.

 

[zzzz]

Yo have intel 845D or sis 645 as two good options.
The Bd7 board is troublesome from most of the posts I have seen here.
I have the gigybyte 645 board, it is a good overclocker but it does not have a clear cmos jumper. IMHO that is a stupid design mistake.

 

[o1die]

If you go with rdram, newegg has the abit Th7-II with raid (refurbished with 30 day warranty) for $135. Only negative is that it may not post with the northwood cpu's without a bios upgrade, available from abit. For ddram, I use the epox ep-4sda+ with raid and ata 133 ($99 or $86 without raid). It has 6 pci slots, 3 ddram slots, and voltage adjustments for the cpu (up to about 1.8 volts), ddram, and agp. The sound quality is poor, but I use a cheap 32 bit pci card. I was able to get my 1.6a to run at 138 fsb (2.2 gigs) but lowered it to 135 (2.16) after adding a second stick of cheap ddram to get it running stable with the fastest memory settings.

 

[alkaprim]

Why dont you try asus P4S333 , it can be had for ~100.00.
Excelent overclocking , stability ,fully supports 533MHz fsb and as a bonus NO VIA in sight.

 

[GtPrOjEcTX]

do you have that asus board or are you just repeating what you've heard?

 

[dbwillis]

Im running an Asus P4S333 with no problems at all, its very stable