P4 and DDR options

[ahsia]

With my next system, I want to go with a P4, since DDR is now an option. What motherboards are currently available that you would recommend? Or is there something on the horizon that I should wait for?

 

[Heisenberg]

I've got an ECS P4S5A that supports both SDRAM and DDR. It uses the SiS 645 chipset. Several companies make boards that use the SiS 645 (ECS and MSI are two I can think of right now). Intel just released a modified 845 chipset that uses DDR and a bunch of companies make boards with it. There's a review on the main Anandtech site of boards with the 845. Once you decide which chipset you want, deciding which company's board to buy is a cost vs. reputation/reliability/features type of thing.

 

[AndyHui]

ASUS P4S333 or ASUS P4B266.

 

[EV0LUTI0N]

well with the intel chipset i845D u have qiute a few options for the companys here they r

ABIT BD7-RAID
AOpen AX4B Pro
Chaintech 9BJD0
DFI NB70-SC
ECS P4IBAD
FIC VC15
Gigabyte P4 Titan DDR (GA-8IRXP)
Intel D845BG
Luckystar P4A845D
MSI 845 Ultra
Soltek SL-85DR-C
Soyo P4I Fire Dragon

Look here for the reviews of the i845D boards
that is the anandtech review the Gigabyte P4 Titan DDR (GA-8IRXP)-gold award, MSI 845 Ultra-silver and cant remember the bronze.

there r also quite a few sis 645 ones i know that msi and asus make them, jsut stay away from VIA chipsets.

 

[Ark]

EV0LUTI0N, you have to add ASUS to your list of i845 DDR boards.

Also be carefull, some boards are coming with options:
Gigabyte 8IRXP has smaller version 8IRX with less options (check their site)
MSI 845ULTRA comes as -ARU (ATA133, RAID, USB2). Also it can be -A, -AR, -AU with price range from $110 to $180

Pick option you need first.

 

[esc]

you might wanna wait a while for the northwood 2.2++ and pc1066 rdram. im not sure if its pc1066 but i'm pretty sure it will be powerful. IMHO

 

[Athlon4all]

Forget 845-D. Sis 645 is much cheaper and performs better than 845-D. Go get yourself a ECS P4S5A or Asus P4S333. You won't be sorry

EDIT: I just thought I'd mention. SiS 645 boards (including the Asus P4S333) when using DDR333, outperform 850+RDRAM. That's right, SiS 645+DDR333 is faster than RDRAM

 

[JaYBirD0613]

I'm in the same situation as you. I've pretty much decided to go with the Asus P4T-E. This had RIMM so I'll have RDRAM... the price seems to be right.. $300 CDN for 2 sticks of 256MB RDRAM. =)

 

[thermite88]

Current P4 are a pretty good OC bunch. Most of the D0 stepping 1.5G can go over 2G. And the Northwood one would do even better. The 2.2G Northwood has reported to OC to 2.9G.

If you OC, the i845D boards does a lot better than VIA or SIS. See AT review for specific information.

So far, VIA can only go up to 118 FSB (personal experience) and SIS to 115 FSB (highest review value). By comparison, many of the i845D boards go above 133 FSB easily.

I use a Shuttle AV-40 (VIA P4X266) now and very satisfied with it. It is fast and very stable when using a single 512MB Mushkin stick. But I cannot overclock to the same FSB when I fill all three memory slots.

If anyone see VIA or SIS overclock better than I reported here, please, provide a link for us.

 

[oldfart]

If you have DDR ram already, go i845 DDR. Great performer and rock solid stability. If you dont, I'd go i850/RDRAM. The price of RDRAM has come way down. Googlegear has Samsung 256 meg PC 800 for $76. Price is not a factor between DDR and RDRAM at this time.

 

[Athlon4all]

<< Price is not a factor between DDR and RDRAM at this time. >>

I 2nd what Oldfart has said. Just go out there and buy what ever platform is fastest, no matter what memory it needs and right now, that platform is SiS 645+DDR333.

 

[thermite88]

I 2nd what Oldfart has said. Just go out there and buy what ever platform is fastest, no matter what memory it needs and right now, that platform is Intel i850 and RDRAM. See Tom's Hardware for more detail.

If cost is a consideration, both the SiS645 and the VIA P4X266A offer pretty similar performance at lower chipset and memory costs.........If we put the legal quarrels aside for a minute, VIA's P4X266A seems to be the best platform for Intel's Pentium 4 right now. (quoted Tom's hardware)

The above is true if you don't overclock. If you do overclock, then look at Asus P4B266 motherboard review at X-bit Labs. X-bit Labs posted a review of the Asus P4B266 motherboard and showed a phenomenal 172MHz FSB overclocking results.

<< Aiming to find out how ASUS P4B266 feels at high FSB frequencies, i.e., to define the top frequency at which the board works stably, we ran the following test. We were lucky to find a Pentium 4 CPU sample with an unlocked clock frequency multiplier. We deliberately brought it down to 10x and thus could neglect the overclockability of the CPU itself. Then we took DDR333 SDRAM module from KingMax clocked at the FSB frequency in order to obtain the top of FSB overclocking abilities. These are the results of our experiments: (172MHz)

Yeah, 172MHz for the FSB frequency on a Pentium 4 based mainboard is a really serious thing. Nevertheless, ASUS P4B266 worked quite stably at this frequency. This high overclocking result gives us good grounds to draw some interesting conclusions. First, we can state with all the certainty that when Intel launches its Pentium 4 CPUs using 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus, they will surely work well on ASUS P4B266. Second, the overclocking potential of P4B266 is high enough to bring it the status of the best mainboard for Pentium 4 CPUs overclocking. It is also due to the support of DDR SDRAM, which is better overclockable than RDRAM. >>

Based on information available today, an overclocked Asus P4B266 using PC2100 DDR will far outperform an overclocked SIS 645 MB using PC2700 DDR. Sis 645 MB are very limited in OC capability. See the
MSI 645 Ultra Pentium4 SiS645/DDR333 Review at T-break for more detail.

It is interesting to note that the Asus P4B266 is not designed to handle DDR333, but it does it better than the Sis 645 based boards.

 

[Diable]

With RDRAM at the same prices as DDRAM if I were you I would get a Asus P4T-E or a Epox 4T2A3. Both use that i850 chipset which is still the fastest chipset for P4's.