p4b266, p4t3, p4s333

[mixer441]

Hello:

I've spent a couple of days reading opinions and comments on the
virtues of these three boards:

P4t-e (Intel 850 chipset)
P4s333 (SIS 645 chipset)
P4b266 (Intel 845D chipset)

From reading the posts, there doesn't seem to be a clear winner and I
wouldn't expect one.

For those of you that have these boards, I'd like your opinion on
which is the most stable. I'm about to make the leap (of faith) from
a VIA based board that has so many patches that it's like an old dog
with a broken leg (a7v133). I'm sick of the incompatibility with
USB/IRQ sharing/and a host of problems.

Which board has had the least problems (patches/drivers/OS
issues.....)?

So is Intel or SIS my best choice on an ASUS motherboard?

If the board comes with "on board audio" can it be disabled and if so,
does that free up the resources?

I look forward to your opinion!

 

[Athlon4all]

Both SiS and Intel will be great. My personal choice is neither, but to get Abit TH7II. It's a Intel 850 board. It overclocks better than the P4T-E and P4S333 and ocs just as good as P4B266.

 

[Amused]

On board audio on Asus p4 mobos can be disbaled by jumper, or in the bios.

 

[pm]

There is definitely a clear winner in terms of price. The P4S333 is about 40% less than the other two at most places.

 

[mixer441]

 

[mixer441]

You are right, the SIS chipset board (p4s333) is the best for the money/performance................but when it comes to problems (drivers/compatibility/bugs/patches) what about SIS? There is not much on them or the board for that matter. Maybe that's good (or bad).

 

[RazeOrc]

I'm with Athlon4all, I run an the 850 Chipset on the ABIT TH7-II RAID and it has been the most stable system ever, even moreso than stupid factory built systems and I can OC the crap out of it if I wish. The TH7-IIs (make sure it's a II or else you'll be on the 423pin P4s which are a dead stick) support FSB up to 255MHz (multiply by 4 to get true possible FSB which means it will most likely support PC1066 in BIOS with clock multipliers (locked of course for the P4) close to 30x I believe. ABIT guarantees that they'll work with Northwoods after the last BIOS update which is as painless as I have ever found a BIOS flash. My board uses HighPoint's 370/372 controller which is no longer plagued by compatibility issues as the older 360 series controller was, and I get darned good RAID results from the onboard controller. The Best 850 solutions are probably Asus P4-T(e?), ABIT TH7-II, and the ABIT TH7-II RAID, don't bother with anything else, these boards give the most flexibilty and OCability with RDRam which is no longer the most overpriced ram on the market, now it shares that title with DDR!!!!

As for SiS645 It seems like the next best bet based on reports, only question is SiS finally mature enough and will there be major compatibility issues? Therefore I'd reccomend SiS based on performance, not necessarily stability as most reports do little to examine this issue.

The 845D is the cheapest and most useful to newcomers, as it supports both SDRAM and DDR on an Intel APPROVED chipset. Therefore stability is branded all over this puppy, but performance is not, using the best DDR and OCing may improve your processor speed but your mem bandwidth is not going to go anywhere.

In conclusion I will reitterate why most P4 owners own a P4, either they're stupid and picked one up not knowing about Athlons and were swept away by the marketing blitz, Or they have come to know and trust the stability and reliability of Intel and prefer it over raw power, Or they believe the extra mem bandwidth is worth the extra pennies because they do enough multitasking to really need a second processor in their box. I personally fall into the last category, as I have seen and tested Athlons vs P4s. Athlons are without a doubt faster and better at single to limited multitasking, however, when it comes to truely beating on your computer (i.e. throwing it 6+ programs simultaneous with heavy usage) P4s tend not to slow down nearly as much as the best Athlons, here again this is only a personal observation, whether it holds true under all circumstances is not for me to say.