The Move To P4: Late Winter; Early Spring. Come Inside!!!

[JOSEPHLB]

Well, on Monday, the Northwoods will officially be released, as a whole sleuth of chips will be tossed out on the market.
I'm currently looking into the short future, and planning my move to an Intel PIV platform. Most likely will be doing this around the late winter, early spring time era.
By then, the Intel PIV 2.0A Ghz (Northwood, 512K) prices should be quite affordable. I already have DDR memory, so I plan to stay with that current memory architecture.

Here are the contestants for the board that will house this project this winter:
(Items with "*" denote top 3 choices, as of now)

*ASUS P4S333 (SIS 645)
*ASUS P4B266 (INTEL 845D)
*ABIT BD7 (INTEL 845D)
ABIT SD7-533 (SIS 645)
EPOX EP-4BDA (INTEL 845D)
GIGABYTE GA-8IRX P4 TITAN (INTEL 845D)
MSI MS-6547 (SIS 645)
MSI MS-6398 (INTEL 845D)
SOYO SY-P4S DRAGON ULTRA (SIS 645)
SOYO SY-P4I FIRE DRAGON (INTEL 845D)

I'll most likely skip the upcoming generation of Nvidia cards, as my Geforce 3 (running at Ti 500) speeds should suffice. Most likely will upgrade the cooling on this board, if I need any more speed. I have (2) Crucial 256 MB PC2100 DDR DIMMS currently.

The Abit BD7 solution has a "PCI Bus" lock type feature in the BIOS, supposedly, from the review I read. Whatever FSB speed you set your system to run at, you can set and lock your PCI bus at 33 Mhz, 37.5, or other various speeds, NO matter what your FSB is set up as. Other than that, all of the boards perform about the same. The Abit board pushed close to the SIS 645 benchmarks as well. Intel is known for stability though; so that will be a primary concern.

From this list of boards, do any of you guys have any hands on experience (you early adopters in particular ) ??
Which boards should go to the bottom of the list, and not even be considered? Comments on this are greatly appreciated. Flame on!!!!!

 

[Deathwish2000]

Im heading toward the Asus P4S-333 board for my Pentium4 rig

 

[classy]

My money is still AMD will be on top. We'll see. Intel PIV 2.0A , KT133A, KT266A. LOL Sounds like Intel is following VIA's lead. If its broke or performs poorly, fix it, then stick a "A" on it and say it is an upgrade.

 

[JOSEPHLB]

back on the matter of the Pentium 4...

I've noticed some of the motherboards have a mounting like plastic bracket around the CPU socket.
Is this used for mounting the Pentium 4 heatsink down; thus enabling me to use my current case (Supermicro SC760A, bought before the P4 era) ???

 

[Athlon4all]

Hmmmm, 2 questions:

1. Do you plan on overclocking?
2. Is your DDR PC2100?

If yes to question #1, then I would take BD7. SiS 645 really sucks in fsb overclocking (compared to 845-D), and with the PCI bus locking, that should allow for 133MHz+ fsb speeds. If u say Yes to question #2 as well, well according to THG's 845-D review, P4X266 beats 845-D, and even without DDR333, SiS 645 beats both of them so anyway. To sum it up, if u want to overclock your Northwood big time, then go 845-D. Nothing can beat it's fsb overclocking in the P4 arena, but even if u only have DDR266, but don't care about overclocking, take Asus P4S333, or I'd bet the Soyo P4S Dragon Ultra will be great as well. As far as stability goes, they're equal IMHO, the only reason to go 845-D is for overclocking.

 

[oldfart]

Dont forget to take into consideration the rock solid stability you will get with 845-D. The ASUS P4B266 is a nice one. Did you know there will also be a 1.6 ~ $190 and 1.8 ~ $260 Northwood? Could grab one of them and overclock it.

 

[JOSEPHLB]

oh my..
So, if the rumor is right, and they release a 1.6A & 1.8A Northwood.. these could possibly push to 133FSB
Hmmm... that could be quite a screamer

My Crucial PC2100 will run easily @ max settings on 133-140FSB.. anything lower, have to set the CAS back down to 2.5, instead of 2

The Abit BD7 really looks like a great choice. My last Abit board was the SE6, so its been a while since I've been on the Abit train..but from what I've read, their stability is back on the rise...

 

[oldfart]

I think it may be more than a rumor.

 

[christoph83]

Very nice. I'm doing this same thing this later winter Josephlb and im trying to figure out the same things. So many options now on the P4. I've got more decisions to make because I dont have any DDR at the moment. I want to get the best overclocking board out there and that seems to narrow it down to the i845D or i850. 256 RDRAM is running about 75 vs 256 Crucial DDR at 70 or so. So its becoming a toss up for me. Anyone used a EPOX 4T2A3 before? Sopposed to be a very very good overclocking board on the RDRAM side. Otherwise theres the Asus P4T-E or the Asus P4B266.

 

[JOSEPHLB]

christoph83 I'm sure others, along with me would recommend to you, for you to go the RDRAM route. Since you mentioned you dont currently have DDR, I assume you are on an SDRAM system. DDR and RDRAM are pretty close to the same, in price, give or take some here and there.. so, I would go the RDRAM route.
I currently have 512 MB of Crucial DDR, so I'm going to stick it out on the DDR front for now.

 

[millsy]

I have just seen a review of the following boards:

Abit BL7
Abit TH7II-RAID
AOpen AX4BS Pro
Asus P4B/Audio
Asus P4T-E
DFI NT70-SA
FIC VC11-LAN
Gigabyte 8IRM
Gigabyte 8ITXR
Intel D845WN
Intel D850MV
MSI 645 Ultra
MSI 850 Pro5
QDI PlatiniX 2-AL
Shuttle AV40R
SuperMicro P4SBA+
Transcend ABD4 /NR
VIA P4X266 PR22-S

Ones worth mentioning were the Abit BL7, Gigabyte 8ITXR.
and the board that won is the MSI 645 Ultra. Mainly because of its great performance, stability and cheapness.