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Suggestions for a new P4 "Northwood" board. Help pls?

J

JoshB5269

Junior Member
Hi, I'm trying to build a new P4 "Northwood" system. Before the release of the new P4s I was going with an XP set up, and had extensivly researched the topic. But now I'm ready to buy, but I've become interested in a P4. So basicly, I have around a 3k budget, and no knowledge of what to blow it on *wink*. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions for a P4 "Northwood" set up, and money isn't really a concern...My only true intrest is getting a bleeding-edge set up. Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much in advance!

-Josh
 
if you're going the asus route, you might as well buy the p4s333 instead of the p4b266. Anyways, i've heard both great and horrible things about the MSI 645 Ultra. Seems some people are having problems with this board. It is what accelenation used in their p4 1.6a review: http://accelenation.com/?doc=117&page=1
 
depends on what you want anything over 2 ddr dimms is worthless. and I for one will tell you dont listen to Anandtechs round up cause he doesnt know crap. I bought the one he gave the gold too and the board is a piece of sh1t
 
I'm also trying to build a system on the Northwood P4. Unfortunately the mobo I was leaning towards (GA-8IRXP) has been torn to shreds here. It seems there are a few problems with boards utilizing the 845D chipset. It seems using an 845 motherboard and O'Cing is the only way to come close to the performance of the 850 w/Rambus. I'm leaning back towards 850 chipset and Rambus type memory again. Perhaps the Abit TH7II-R, ASUS P4T-E or Intel D850MVL. I would like to try using RAID but am I better off using the TH7II-R w/ATA100 or a PCI RAID board such as the High Point RocketRaid 133. I'll be using Maxtor 40GB 7200 ATA133 Drives. Help !!!!!

P.S. I'm not big into O'Cing but I sure wouldn't mind getting a 1.8a upto say 2.0GHz or 2.2 GHz.
 
If you're not overclocking, or if it isn't a supreme overclock, then buy the Asus P4T-E. If you are doing some serious overclocking, then buy the ABIT TH7II. I own both boards (technically I have an Asus P4T-EM, which is the mATX version of the P4T-E), and they are both excellent. RDRAM is really the way to go with the P4.
 


<< If you're not overclocking, or if it isn't a supreme overclock, then buy the Asus P4T-E. If you are doing some serious overclocking, then buy the ABIT TH7II. I own both boards (technically I have an Asus P4T-EM, which is the mATX version of the P4T-E), and they are both excellent. RDRAM is really the way to go with the P4. >>



also the 8IRXP is a great board if you dont want to overclock, if you dont then there is no problem with the board
 
I recommend the ASUS P4T-E. You won't get stellar overclocks, but it really does perform well.
 
JoshB5269, if you've the money to spare you should go RDRAM and for that I'd recommend the Asus P4T-E (make sure it's not the P4T-F since it's a Socket 423 board). I would probably go with an RDRAM setup myself if I hadn't money invested in DDR RAM memory (wanted an Athlon rig to begin with).

Only caution regarding the P4T-E would be that there's a version with some new clock chips, which won't allow as much overclocking apparently ("CYP" = bad, "ICS" = good).

If you want to go the DDR RAM route you should go for the Asus P4B266 (I probably will). Seems to be the highest quality board.

For a truly cutting edge rig I suppose you will also want to look at one of the new GeForce4 4600 based gfx boards... 🙂
 
Thank you all for your help. I finally decided and purchased the following today:

Abit TH7II-R
Intel P4 1.8a Northwood (Retail)
512MB Samsung Rambus 800 ECC
Second H.D (I have one of these already) Maxtor 6L040J2 40 GB (going to use the Raid ATA100 on the TH7II-R in RAID 0 mode)
ATI Radeon 8500 (Retail)

Hopefully I'll receive everything before next weekend woo-hoo !!!
Then maybe someone can share some bios setting secrets with me....

Thanks again everyone !!!

P.S. Is the stock Intel fan adequate any suggestions?
 
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