Recommend a GOOD p4 DDR mobo.

[Caper]

 

[Caper]

Sorry for the double post, hit the Enter key by mistake.

I am running AMD rig and haven´t been following Intel since I had my Asus CUSL-2 and PIII 700.

Now a friend of mine called and wanted me to know what Intel DDR motherboard he should buy.
He is leaving the AMD and want´s to use his DDR memory.

He is not interested in overclocking but wants a rock solid performer.

Suggestions??

 

[HaroldW]

Asus P4S533 or P4S333. They are known, stable boards with a reasonable price ($99/$88 respectively at Newegg) The P4S533 is an upgraded version of the P4S333 that supports the new 533Mhz FSB Pentium 4's. I have the P4S333 running a Northwood 2Gig at 2.4 with the fan on the lo speed on a Volcano 7+ CPU heatsink/fan, absolutely stable. The P4S533 was not yet available when I bought my P4S333. There is plenty of information on overclocking these boards in the discussion groups at www.asusboards.com. They use the SIS645 chipset and DDR333 memory. See http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1541 for a chipset comparison.

 

[HaroldW]

One more thing. If you get one of these boards connect the standard ATX power connector and ONE of the auxillary power connectors. There are two 12volt connectors on the motherboard, the standard P4 12volt connector and in case you do not have a P4 power supply they also provided a hard drive power connector to tap off the 12volts. Connect only one of these. There has been some confusion on this. Some people have connected both and caused problems.

 

[Zap]

He is not interested in overclocking but wants a rock solid performer

If so, then just about anything will work. Reviewers have liked VIA chipset boards for non-overclocked use. I've used a few Shuttle AV45GT boards (VIA P4X266A) and they work great. I've also used a VIA brand P4X266A chipset board, a Gigabyte GA-8IRX board using the Intel 845D chipset, an MSI 645Pro using the SiS 645 chipset and a few Azza boards using the older VIA P4X266 chipset. They have all worked as advertised and were all stable. Hmmm, the only P4 DDR board I can recall ever thinking it wasn't such a great board would be the ECS P4S5A (SiS 645 chipset). It is non-standard in that it doesn't use anything besides the regular ATX connector, no 12V square plug (or the Asus EZ plug). It undervolts the CPU and experiences the occasional glitch, plus sometimes the integrated LAN flakes out. I actually don't know if it is a problem with the board or with something else (most likely the old, generic non-P4 power supply that was used with it). Overclocked was another matter, but since your friend wouldn't be...

Really, probably any board with the features that your friend wants at a price he's willing to pay would work great. Just choose a board from any reputable manufacturer and purchase from a reputable reseller.