SIS648 or 845PE Alittle help?

[Ynog]

Need a motherboard.

Looking to get a Pentium 4 board with DDR. Really don't think price vs performance is worth RDRAM anymore.

Basically the two chipsets I am looking at is the SIS648 or the 845PE.

Now as far as the boards. For the SIS boards I would probably get the Giga-byte 8SG667.
When it comes to the PE board, I am not sure if I should go with the Albartron PE or the Asus PE.

I really don't overclock all that much however overclocking is not out of the question, but not a priority when buying.
Budget is medium, I spend the money if its worth the price.

Also any insight on a case would be appreciated.

Thanks alot for any advice you might have

 

[BubbaJudge]

i recently bought a Giga-byte 8SG667 because it has great performance(supports ddr400) at a low price. it doesnt have all the onboard goodies of the 845PE boards(Lan,firewire,raid) but i can do without those for now. mainly, i didnt want to invest alot in a board now because i am waiting for the dual channel granite bay boards coming out soon.

 

[Vette73]

I would go for the SiS648 as it is proven and been out. The 845PE might be good but it is still new and might have some unheard bugs.

 

[Ynog]

No offense here, but the funny thing is I have read a few places the opposite thing.
People say that the 648 is the new chipset and that the 845 chipset is the one that
has been out and is proven.

Now I won't argue this much and if I am wrong, please point it out, but if the
845 PE is based on the 845 chipset, even though the PE is the latest release
of that chipset wouldn't it still be based off of the original 845 intel chipset,
making it just a new version of an already released chipset.

On those same lines, the SIS 648 Supports DDR 400 and 8X AGP (atleast some
of them do). Now this isn't necessarily good logic, but wouldn't the board that
supports the newest technology, lend itself to being the "newer board".

Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate the advice. I just want to clearify that.

 

[oldfart]

The 845PE is the 4th "tweak" of the i845 DDR boards. The 845D/E/G/PE are all pretty similar. The PE just made DDR333 support official, even though it worked fine on previous versions. They are mature, stable, fast and bug free. If you can wait a month or so, the dual channel DDR Granite Bay boards will be out, which will make everything else obsolete.

 

[LouPoir]

I agree - the I845PE is more mature thant the SIS648.

Lou

 

[DOOPYLOOPY]

So which board do u think would fit better with a P4 2.4/53 Northwood. Probably would up the fsb for some very mild overclocking.

The GA8SG667 had such a great review on anandtech, and it's cheap and I dont' need integrated LAN/firewire or RAID. So I'm looking at that option myself.

What's the performance like of the SiS648 vs i845PE chipsets?

 

[Regalk]

Frankly I am surprised that Gigabyte made something of the SiS 648 - all the other big names just couldn't do it. I wouldn't be surprised if the 648 is revised in the near future. On that note I would say the PE is the chipset for today. I have the P4PE and am very pleased with it (even though it costs more) - when granite bay comes along I will get it but not until it matures sufficiently and that gives me time to relax with the P4PE.

 

[DOOPYLOOPY]

How long till Granite Bay comes along?

I know the NDA finishes mid November and the sites will have reviews of it. But how long till we can actually buy the boards?

Does anyone know?

 

[Johnnychangs]

I'm also in the crossroads in between the 8SG667(anyone have a version#2?) and the Albatron PE. I've never been able to get a P4 board that I could hit DDR400 on. The Gigabyte looks great but I'm kind of sketched out by not having any cpu or memory voltage control. The 2nd Revision of the 8SG667 is supposed to have voltage control, and a birdie told me they have Rev2 available at Multiwave Direct. The Albatron looks really great and is cheap.

I've got an Epox 4G4A+ with a P41.6A right now, which I have running at 2.3ghz@380-ish(?) DDR. All the reviews I read for the 4G4A+ praised the overclockability of the board, blah blah. I think the board is great. Its very stable and It was well worth the money I paid for it. The speed increase I could get with either of the aforementioned boards wouldn't be that huge. So maybe I should just pickup a new Processor?

On Nov.10, prices on Intel Processors are being reduced (I read a press release). I was thinking of waiting until next week to pick up a 2.53 or 2.6 with the "15-25%" pricedrop. Sweet.

Another side of me tells me to keep everything I have now and wait for Granite Bay.

How long for GB?? I've heard November, Mid Nov, by Xmas, blah blah. Personally, I don't think the normal consumer is going to see a GB mobo until sometime next year. Usually new chipset mobos are given out to some sites a month or two before for a preview. Then figure in the time it takes for each manufacturer to release their version. I'm guessing maybe February. I could be very wrong.

Please let me know your comments on this. I was going to write a new post since I'm a blabbermouth, but this one was already here.

Thanks in advance

 

[DOOPYLOOPY]

that's exactly what I'm wondering Johnny

How long till we can purchase the DCDDR chispset motherboards.

if it's next year I think i'll just buy the 8SG667 now.