p4 mobo recommendation....

[Duvie]

Well I am not 100 percent sure on my conversion to p4...I have a few questions....

I am looking at ocing a 1.8a northwood to near 2.4ghz, which seems to be able to be done with boosting fsb up to 133. I have 512mb ddr and that is what I want to use

What is the best i845 platform mobo???

What is the best overclocker???

How is the Asus p4b266-c?? Does it have all the adjustments necessary?

I ruled out sis645 because of the lack of usb 2.0 support. Does the asus have 2.0 support?

 

[x86]

This came from another post of mine:

I have really been doing my homework on this. Here is the break down for you:

MSI 845 Ultra AR - ATA133 with RAID; 5 PCI slots (there are usually 6 but 1 isn't really going to matter); great OCing abilities; one of the first 845-D motherboards out but they have made revisions so you know that you are getting the most up-to-date model. The standard for DDR-SDRAM slots for the 845-D is 2, but the MSI 845 Ultra has 3 and as far as I know, it works PERFECTLY fine. I have heard that this board offers EXCELLENT stability.

MSI 845 Ultra ARU - everything that the 845 Ultra AR has with 6 USB2.0 slots. For only ~$10 more I would buy this one.

Gigabyte 8IRXP - Everything that the MSI 845 Ultra ARU has but with 6 PCI slots, crappy manual, and integrated LAN. With LAN cards practically free with rebates, I don't think it is worth the extra $50.00.

Gigabyte and MSI are among the TOP 3 Motherboard manufacturers according to the latest reports. It is basically your choice. Personally I think the MSI 845 Ultra ARU has the best value and stability among ALL of them, and is what I would get. I believe it is cheaper than the Asus by $15.00.

-x86

 

[thermite88]

<< How is the Asus p4b266-c?? Does it have all the adjustments necessary? >>

Yes, it has everything that you need to OC, including the CPU and memory voltage to very high values (dangereous). I have one.

<< Does the asus have USB 2.0 support? >>

Not the P4B266-C.:frown: You will need to get the P4B266 to get USB 2.0.

 

[Duvie]

Thanks for the great info...

The asus board at newegg is 19.00 dollars cheaper then the MSI Aru board....


I really want the usb 2.0 support but would favor ocing prowess...I need a 2.2ghz or greater yield to make this worthwhile....

 

[HouRman]

If you really want USB 2.0 why not just buy a PCI card that offers USB 2.0 slots and buy the mobo you want.

 

[Duvie]

Not a bad idea, but if I can get it on the board and keep my pci slots open and case less cluttered the better....


I mainly need some good advice on my ocing ability to reach my goal of stability and 2.2ghz...I would love some of that 2.4ghz I hear some getting by reaching a 133fsb, but I don't know if they got that on a i850 platform or a i845 platform that lets you set pci and agp speeds independently of the fsb as to lock in a multiplier I guess..

 

[x86]

<<

<< How is the Asus p4b266-c?? Does it have all the adjustments necessary? >>

Yes, it has everything that you need to OC, including the CPU and memory voltage to very high values (dangereous). I have one.

<< Does the asus have USB 2.0 support? >>

Not the P4B266-C.:frown: You will need to get the P4B266 to get USB 2.0. >>



I must say that Asus has a great reputation for OCing, but it doesn't have RAID. I am not too sure when, if ever, an Asus board with RAID will be released, that would be great.

-x86

 

[Duvie]

OK did the research...
MSI Ultra ARU
Asus P4B266
Abit BD7-Raid
GA-8IRXP


Asus p4b266 (not c) looks good...It has adjustments that allow pci/agp/fsb to be controlled and set independently...can't find any good reports on successful ocing....most expensive of the boards I am looking at...

MSI looks great...It had all voltage adjustments necessary...3 ddr slots...anandtech got 140fsb stable which will be good for ocing of 1.8ghz northwood...cheapest of boards...usb 2.0 as well...One of the highest fsb overclocker board.

Abit looks poor on ocing front...though it has fixable pci mhz it seems to be a waste

GA-8IRXP look good as well...a lot like the MSI ultra but with lan...cost a bit more and not better ocer in anandtech's review. Also saw it not as high as ultra in other review (can't remember now)...


So if I go P4 it looks like the MSI Ultra may be the winner...and for 136.00 at newegg it makes a possible p4 conversion more reasonable...

 

[thermite88]

In most P4 MB, the Vcore voltage adjustment are limited to 1.85 volt for Willamette and 1.7 volt for Northwood. The Asus P4B266 has an OVER_VOLT jumper. When enabled, the max voltage are 2.1 and 1.75 respectively. That makes it more dangereous. The voltage step is 0.025 in BIOS.

The DDR voltage is controlled by jumpers only, at 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7 volts.

<< Asus p4b266 (not c) looks good...It has adjustments that allow pci/agp/fsb to be controlled and set independently...can't find any good reports on successful ocing.... >>

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. >>

 

[Athlon4all]

<< What is the best i845 platform mobo??? >>

I feel the best balance between features and ocing is MSI's 845 Ultra ARU. It ocs same as a P4B266 but has more features.

<< What is the best overclocker??? >>

Abit TH7II. It benefit's more from ocing than P4B266 via the RDRAM.

<< How is the Asus p4b266-c?? Does it have all the adjustments necessary? >>

It's solid, but I'd rather have a TH7II

 

[Duvie]

I am leaning towards the ultra of msi as well...The asus is about 20 bucks more and I found I review at ocworkbench that got the board to post a fsb of 176mhz...

 

[Ark]

I am thinking about MSI-6398-AR or ARU for my son's PC upgrade -
the best combination of features, stability, quality and price.
In combination with 1.6AG or 1.8AG northwood CPU it will be the best setup IMHO.

My friend just got this combo last night from the local shop:
1.6AG, 6398- 845UltraARU, 2 HDs for raid, GF3 Ti200
and will be putting it together this weekend.
I'll post results.

 

[Duvie]

please do...thanks

 

[Ark]

The only concern I have is how 6398 will accept northwood CPU.
It should be OK, especially with BIOS upgrade available from msi

 

[Duvie]

My understanding is the chip should work now...I saw some sites bundling this with the northwood...Seems foolish to expect ppl to do a risky bios update to get it to work when you bundle it together...bad business...

 

[dud2k]

asus p4t-e

 

[Duvie]

Did I not say I want to use my ddr???

 

[Slacker]

I have an Asus P4S333 on the way, along with a retail box P4 1.6 and 2x256mb Kingmax PC2700, I can let you know how it is after I get it set up.

 

[Duvie]

Thanks I appreciate it...

I am starting to lean maybe more towards the asus...the memory bandwidth may a big factor...

 

[tornadobox]

i didn't really take the time to read all the other posts here carefuly, so sorry if this is a repost.

anyhow, i have the ASUS P4B266-C board, and to answer your question about adjustments, it has the ability to increase FSB by 1MHz increments. also, it allows you to increase the voltage to your DDR RAM and also increase the vcore. the board that i have does NOT have USB 2.0 support however.

i've had no problems with this board whatsoever and really like it

anyhow hope some of that info helps.