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Run for cover, here comes the NuB...

P

proffalken

Junior Member
Run for cover, here comes the newbee....

Was out of the upgrade scene for a while (having a baby and trying to manage a full and part time job do that), now I'm looking at replacing my (relatively) ancient CUSL2, P-III 866 Win98SE system, so I've been trolling around this and various other forums getting some ideas; Anandtech seems to have some pretty knowledgeable members who (so far) are quite tolerant of your average newB, so it looks like you're stuck w/ me. About settled on the following: P4B533V w/ P4-1.6A, 512M PC2700 (Samsung, of course), VisionTek GeForce Ti4400, Audigy, and quite possibly an upgrade to WinXP as well.

I've been gaining a lot of background reviewing the forums, but I's gots a few general questions if anyone can give me a few pointers:

1. P4B533V motherboard - Seems quite pricey at the current time, but I haven't read many bad things about it. For those of you who are pretty active, can we expect the price of this board to come down relatively quickly once more vendors start carrying it (and why aren't many vendors carrying it? Supply problems?) I can easily wait til the middle of summer, but I'll pull the trigger if the price remains stable.

2. Been trying to sort out all the new lingo on DDR memory and OCing these boards. I've gotten bits and pieces from various posts, but does anyone know of a good primer or FAQ that could explain the memory ratios, PCI/AGP lock benefits/drawbacks, etc. I'm not looking to max out the processor or board, but from what I've read, it seems to be relatively easy to OC the 1.6 to 2.1, 2.2 without too much risk, especially with the 845, 845G boards. For example, exactly what risks are there in OCing to the hard drives, video card stability?

3. WinXP - Haven't come across too many posts lately complaining about the XP OS. I'll be using the rig for CAD work, business apps, and (of course) gaming. Any opinions out there on why I WOULDN'T want to upgrade the OS along with the HW?

4. Processor - IYO, which would get me the best OC for the price, a 1.6A ($140), or 1.8A ($170)?

5. I had read a post with a website that provide user ratings on most of the vendors shown on pricewatch, but didn't write down the url. Anyone got it? Any other good websites for hardware and OCing (Toms Hardware, Hard OC, etc) would be appreciated.

Thanks, all...

Der Perfesser


 
Reseller Ratings is the one I was thinking of, thanks for the reminder!

Just checked em out WRT hardware vendors, and I was looking at Newegg, Axion, and Jazz, which all seem to have fair ratings. Any other suggestions (or warnings) welcome.

Der Perfesser
 
Howdy proffalken, here are a couple of observations in no particular order:

Regarding WinXP... if you plan to use SCSI hard drives, this thread at StorageReview is going to interest you. Seems like the SCSI-using crowd over there is having major issues with WinXP crippling the performance of all sorts of excellent SCSI cards/hard drives. They find that Windows2000 doesn't have those issues. Win98SE is not known for efficient management of large amounts of RAM and has issues when you go beyond 512Mb, which you might end up doing in CAD work. Maybe get Win2k? Still has dual-processor support for down the road... If you do get XP, be aware that WinXP Home doesn't offer dual-CPU support.

Of the Intel-compatible DDR chipsets, the i845G would be interesting because it's got FireWire support, USB 2.0, supports PC2700 memory (unofficially) and has onboard graphics so you can hand it down to your sister/mom/uncle in a couple years without having to find a video card to go with it. The upcoming i845GE will add "official" DDR333 support.

Pricing may drop somewhat, but nothing like CPUs do. My Asus A7V333-R dropped about $10 since its introduction, and it is somewhat similar to the P4B533-V in that it's a "high-end" board of its type. $10 is not a great incentive to wait, IMHO.

If the PCI bus which hosts the hard drive controllers is pushed too far from its normal speed, you may have corruption of your hard drive (on IDE controllers) or a non-booting system (on SCSI controllers--not known for tolerating out-of-spec bus speeds very well). So you want a board that can keep the PCI bus from getting too far out of spec, using locking and/or dividers, if you'll be overclocking. There is a lot of info in the CPU/Processors & Overclocking section about this general topic. It's a safe bet your video card will easily tolerate any bus speeds that your hard drives can handle, so no worries there.

If you're interested in an equivalent AMD-based system, an AthlonXP 2000+ on an A7V333-R would be reasonably close, except no onboard video. It does have FireWire and USB 2.0.
 
ng WinXP... if you plan to use SCSI hard drives, this thread at StorageReview is going to interest you. Seems like the SCSI-using crowd over
there is having major issues with WinXP crippling the performance of all sorts of excellent SCSI cards/hard drives. They find that Windows2000 doesn't
have those issues. Win98SE is not known for efficient management of large amounts of RAM and has issues when you go beyond 512Mb, which you
might end up doing in CAD work. Maybe get Win2k? Still has dual-processor support for down the road... If you do get XP, be aware that WinXP Home
doesn't offer dual-CPU support.

Of the Intel-compatible DDR chipsets, the i845G would be interesting because it's got FireWire support, USB 2.0, supports PC2700 memory (unofficially)
and has onboard graphics so you can hand it down to your sister/mom/uncle in a couple years without having to find a video card to go with it. The
upcoming i845GE will add "official" DDR333 support.

Pricing may drop somewhat, but nothing like CPUs do. My Asus A7V333-R dropped about $10 since its introduction, and it is somewhat similar to the
P4B533-V in that it's a "high-end" board of its type. $10 is not a great incentive to wait, IMHO.

If the PCI bus which hosts the hard drive controllers is pushed too far from its normal speed, you may have corruption of your hard drive (on IDE
mechBgon,

Thanks for the advice.

Re: XP - I hadn't yet decided on XP Home or Professional. I'm not going to be running SCSI components or dual processors (my CAD work is just simple DOT traffic control and intersection design, nothing too intensive, so if Microstation will run well on XP, fine by me), just a simple two computer network. I'm not one to adopt a new OS quickly, so I was more concerned with whether or not most people considered XP to have been sufficiently broken in enough for the average user to upgrade without worrying about too many bugs that should have been fixed before the OS went on the market!

<If the PCI bus which hosts the hard drive controllers is pushed too far from its normal speed, you may have corruption of your hard drive (on IDE
controllers) or a non-booting system (on SCSI controllers--not known for tolerating out-of-spec bus speeds very well). So you want a board that can keep the PCI bus from getting too far out of spec, using locking and/or dividers, if you'll be overclocking.>
I'm not a power OC'er, but I've been doing simple ocing since running my PII-300 as a 450 on a P2B a while back. No one seems to be having too much trouble ocing the 1.6A to around 2.1, 2.2, so I'll probably just stick with that. Any word on whether the P4B533V has the locking feature?

<If you're interested in an equivalent AMD-based system, an AthlonXP 2000+ on an A7V333-R would be reasonably close, except no onboard video. It does have FireWire and USB 2.0.>

Thanks for the rec, but I've been running Intel and either Asus or Abit for some years, so I think I'll stick with what got me here. (Having a newborn around the house doesn't leave me with enough money or time to experiment, anyway!)

Your note about handing down the card at a later date with the integrated graphics was one I hadn't thought about. That and your suggestion about the MB price stability might give me the leverage with the Keeper of the Vault Keys. By the way, why are so few vendors carrying the P4B533V card? Is it that new, or is the price keeping them away?

Thanks again,

DER PERFESSER
 
I'm guessing new + high demand on the P4B533-V. I made an error in saying it has onboard FireWire, because it apparently doesn't after all... oops! 😱 The chipset has the capability, however. So far I'm not finding any boards on the market that take advantage of that capability.

I haven't read through it, but there's a thread devoted to the P4B533-V here and if you don't find the info you want, post your question there and they'll probably get you the answers you need regarding locking of PCI, etc. Even if the board doesn't feature PCI locking, I think it surely has the dividers needed to hit the overclock you're shooting for while keeping the PCI bus close to spec.

Good luck with She Who Must Be Obeyed! If she doesn't have a PC yet, you could hand your old one down to her... 😀
 
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