Which motherboard would you go with for P4 1.6A ?

[gsethi]

hello

i am little confused as to which motherboard to go with out of the following two:

my Needs: have a SB Live sound card, so sound is not a matter for me. I need a NIC for my DSL connection. Looking to overclock ~2.2 - 2.4 ghz. ease of overclocking.

Giga-byte GA-8IRXP mobo ?
or
MSI 845 Ultra - ARU ?

which of the above two motherboards would you prefer and any particular reasons ?

 

[Papercup]

Asus P4B266 is very good. If you get the -C model it has no sound, but it also has no USB2.0.

I have the regular one with both (but you can just turn the sound off) and its really good. It can do 2.4 fine, but seems happier at 2.2 ish

If you are really stuck on the two you have mentioned then i would take the MSI, less people are whinging about them......the Gigabyte has issues with OCing i believe

 

[oldfart]

After much research, I just ordered the EPOX 4BDA2+. It has some great overclocking features like PCI/AGP lock, and 3:4 mem timing above 133 FSB. People here and @ [ H ] OCP that have it really like the board. There is also the less expensive 4BDA model with no RAID.

 

[gsethi]

hmm....i read that Gigabyte was the most stable mobo and is a great overclocker mobo at tomshardware. it also got the gold award at anandtech. hmm.....

does the Epox 4BDA2+ has Raid, USB 2.0 ?
how are Asus boards, P4B266 ? does it has the 845 chipset, Raid, USB 2.0 and onborad NIC ?

Just recommend me a mobo for <$150 that will be great overclocking mobo.

 

[oldfart]

Epox 4BDA2+ has Raid, no USB 2.0. The Asus P4B266 has one thing I dont like. After 132 MHz FSB, you lose the 3:4 mem ratio option. It goes to 1:1. Epox still allows 3:4 at any bus speed. Check over @ Hardforums. People have had very good luck with this board. It was a tough choice for me. I have a Gigabyte board now, and have had lots of ASUS boards. I dont particularly care for MSI. This will be my first Epox board. I think for a DDR based board it is really a good one. Of course, this is just from what I have read from owners on the forums. I'll know for sure this week when the board, 1.6A and Samsung PC2700 512 meg DDR get here.

 

[nnnyyy]

I have a p4b266. It has USB2.0, no raid, onboard cmedia sound. Very stable board and great for overclocking. Seems like the majority of people here with a northwood have this board.
As far is checking out reviews to help you decide, I have noticed that there arent many "bad" 845DDR boards! So basically according to the reviews, any 845ddr board will be great. I found that info quite misleading. You should really do your homework here and see what types of problems each board has.

For example, the p4b266 has issues with the USB port when at high fsbs. The MSI board has core voltage issues. The gigabyte board has overclocking issues, etc. Sure, not all boards have problems but the one you want to get potentially could.

Before purchasing my board, I based my decision on the features. Liked the ARU, the 8irxp, the bd7r, etc since they were very feature-rich. Went to see the reviews and there was not one thing wrong with any of them. Looked harder and I discover all these little issues.

 

[bowie71]

I would go trying EPoX EP-4SDA+. not because of the RAID or the other features, it's just because I would like to have something different that Intel Chipset, SiS645 has a very good review, Epox is a good quality brand mobo, and moreover it's much cheaper than boards with Intel chipset.

The new generation of SiS chipset for P4 Northwood is SiS645DX, but I haven't seen mobo manufacturers installed in their products yet, though we can see some reviews says the reference board of this chipset performs as good as intel one, in some parts it's even better.

 

[gsethi]

the only bad thing regarding the Giga-byte GA-8IRXP i have seen so far is that it is not a very good overclocking board but stability wise, it is the best.

on toms hardware, they were able to push the board to 3.0Ghz (i think it was 2.0a or was it 2.2a ?). Anandtech also gave this board high remarks. I think that i will go with the 8IRXP board. Since it has all the features that i want. I am not looking into pushing my processor to 2.4Ghz and above. Looking somewhere around 2.1-2.2Ghz (that should be 2200/16 = ~137FSB. if i am able to do ~135 (133 - 137 fsb), i am satisfied, i dont need 150 fsb. considering usb2.0, raid and dual bios, onboard nic, i think that i will go with giga-byte beacause of high stability and features.

i really dont want to go with SIS chipset, again the stability issue again. I am an Intel fan so far and i guess that i will remain to be one. So SIS chipset is outta question for me, so with only 845 chipset, i think that giga-byte will be the best. I have lots of USB devices so cant afford to have those messed up with P4266 board, also would hate to spend extra $10-$10 for nic card for MSI, so giga-byte it is

finally a decision is made unless someone gives me strong reasons again to switch to some other mobo design.

here are my final system specs as of now:

Antec SX1030 case w/ 300w psu
Giga-byte GA-8IRXP mobo
Intel P4 1.6A retail processor
Samsung DDR PC 2100 256 mb chip + Samsung DDR PC 2100 128 mb chip (total 384 mb)
Visiontek GeForce 3 TI 200 w/ 64 mb DDR ram video card
Maxtor DiamondPlus 46GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
SB Live Sound card
Lite-on 16x DVD-Rom drive
Lite-on 24x CD-RW drive

i am little skeptical about the samsung DDR memory. is samsung good for overclocking ? i know, i know, Crucial is the best but.......i already have Samsung chips. might switch to Crucial later on

Thanks to all that have helped in giving me some feedback.

 

[Jeff H]

oldfart, where did you order your 4BDA2+? I was nearly ready to order that board from Newegg, but as of a couple days ago they dropped it. I wrote to Newegg inquiring as to their action, and they basically said don't look for it anytime soon. FWIW they're still handling the 4BDA2, but not the + version. I found the + version @ Accessmicro.com, but they don't have a very good Resellerating status.

 

[oldfart]

Outpost.com has it for $119. Cant wait to get it. I've been doing some more research on it. This board looks like THE P4 DDR board to get. I dont know why its not more popular here @ AT. Has some definate advantages over other mobos. People over @ [ H ] LOVE this board.

 

[oldfart]

WHOA, Outpost ROCKS! I ordered the mobo Friday 4/12 11:00. It just got here Monday 4/15 10:30! Nice!

Bummer....has a Northbridge fan. I'd rather have a big passive HS. I'll see how noisy it is.

 

[Jeff H]

oldfart, that was my experience w/ outpost too. I ordered the Klipsch ProMedia 2.1's from them when they first came out, and even w/ inclement weather they arrived w/i two days.

Re the chipset heatsink, if you want to go passive here's a great Zalman unit that should provide good passive cooling to the 845 chipset.

 

[Bingo13]

Gigabyte 8RSX.

 

[oldfart]

Already ordered the Zalman. My Samsung PC2700 just got here. Now I need the 1.6A

I plan on starting @ ~ 138 FSB, 2.2 GHz, 3:4 mem ratio, 368 MHz DDR speed. Does this sound like a config that will work? I guess I'll have to play around with the balance between CPU and mem frequency to see what works best.

I also have a new Antec True330 PS on the way. My current PS (Antec 303X) does not have the P4 12V connector. I've heard some people say you can run without it. Is this true? I may need to run with the old PS until the new one gets here.

 

[iihrjin]

Why don't you try SiS645 or SiS645DX chitset boards ?
It supports FSB533, and has much better overclockability.

I recommmend ASUS P4S333(SiS645) or ASUS P4S533(Sis645DX).

 

[oldfart]

I (much) prefer Intel chipsets. The Epox 4BDA 845 chipset mobo may not officially support 533 FSB, but it will do it and higher just fine. P1.6A @ 533 FSB 2.128 GHz is pretty much a given. With the 3:4 mem ratio, it will go above PC 2700 speeds as long as the ram will do it.

And BTW Welcome to Anandtech!