Recommendations for P4 mobo ?

Mr.D

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Revamping my serious PC . Scrapping the Asus A7V133 athlon900 based core and going for a P4 (the newer 533 FSB ones) probably around the 2.5GHz or higher. Would prefer DDR333 (or 400) need at least 1Gb capacity possibly more later on.

Will initially use an elderly Geforce 2GTS with it but with a view to upgrading to a Radeon 9700 pro. All the other bits are taken care of.

OS is W2K

Like Asus motherboards. Been looking at the P4B-533(V) with the intel845G chipset that supports DDR333 (and 400 unofficially??) but its not x8 AGP I believe. However it seems like a very stable board (main beef with the A7V).

Alternative is the P4S-8x which has x8 AGP .However I have heard stability issues with the sis645 chipset. ( I need the thing to work well reasonably quickly)

I'll be running very high end 2d and 3d packages working with Hi res images (4096x3112 max) . Bit of video editing on the side too which I figure is the least of my worries.

Whats your opinion guys? ( I 'd like the x8 agp for future proofing)
 
Funny, I just rebuilt my HTPC yesterday around an Asus P4B-533(V) and WinXP Home!

(from scan.co.uk today only, plus VAT)
128Mb PC2700 DDR Memory Branded (Major) £26.50
Asus P4B-533V i845G (533FSB) Intel VGA + Audio P4 DDR Mobo (S478) £93
2.0 GHz Intel Pentium® 4 CPU 512k Cache (Northwood
inc Coolermaster D147H53D for P4 S478 £105.00

+It's the 845G chip (I remember from toms hardware that his is good, but not why?)

+The board has built-in VGA, which I like for later reliable use as a low-end machine in it's second life as a server or something.

-It doesn't have the optional 10/100 LAN adaptor on-board.

+It has on-board 6-channel sound c-media? with an SPDIF out AND IN on a phono riser card blank. Perhaps useful for HTPC audio. I disabled it and haven't tried it as I have an Audiophile 2496 card.

+Surprisingly (and not documented on their website) it has a second serial connector and riser card blank. Useful for me with IRman and BarcoCRT serial connections.

-It doesn't seem to have a WAKE-ON-LAN power connector I can use with a UIRT2 to allow remote conrol power-up. The UIRT2 can be wired to pulse the power button, but it requires a few extra components modding on.

+Looks like software included allows easy customisation of the bios boot graphic. Nice to hide the bios startup with a big theater logo or something.

++This board has a temperature sensitive fan controller. It also includes a PSU fan connector that the Enermax whisper psu has a small lead to connect to to allow it's fan to be controlled by the motherboard/cp temp too. This has to be enabled in the bios and I haven't tested it much. Looks to be ideal for quiet HTPC's.

I haven't installed WinAmp to listen to music without the Barco 808s on so I haven't seen how quiet the fans go yet.

AGP settings in the bios are 4x and 1x

Note: only supports 1.5v AGP cards. There's a sensible red warning led next to the AGP slot which the manual states lights and prevents power-up if a 3.3v card is accidentally used.

Is your Geforce 2 1.5v or 3.3v?

The board seems stable, after I diagnosed WinXP was giving a pci.sys corrupt error was due to my connecting ide2 from m/b to master(DVD-ROM) to slave(secondary 30GB hdu). As it's not a ata100 cable this should be acceptable, but it seems this caused problems until I swapped the connections to be m/b to slave to master. I noticed my IR keyboard/mouse got edgy when I tested suspend mode. I think this is an old keyboard problem, not a problem with the board.

X-box Halo via S-Video DScaler with TomsMocomp deinterlacing, sharpness and noise (gradual) filters looks great with no dropped frames!

What settings can I use to push a P4 2.0Ghz with PC2700 DDR memory on 533MHz capable board?

Am I right in that a P4 2.0GHz uses a quad-pumped 100MHz cpu system bus setting? I'm currently seeing max 52 degrees cpu, within a cramped, sound deadened DIGN desktop case while 100% cpu with DScaler.

I've read on overclockers.com that quite a few 2.0GHz P4's run to about 2.7GHz without extreeme cooling. So, a 133MHz cpu bus setting should give 533MHz main memory and 2.66GHz if it runs within reasonble temperature limits, right?

regards,
Rob.
 
Thanks man : not sure about the voltage on the geforce but I think it would be ok.

Done some snooping and the P4S-8x had a lot of reliability issues on the first run that may or may not have been rectified. I do plan to get the Radeon 9700 at some point and would like a board that handles x8 AGP.
 
Alternative is the P4S-8x which has x8 AGP .However I have heard stability issues with the sis645 chipset. ( I need the thing to work well reasonably quickly)

I've been using this board for about 6 weeks and it's been really stable under xp (no probs under 98se either). The chipset is actually sis648, the successor to the 645.


Done some snooping and the P4S-8x had a lot of reliability issues on the first run that may or may not have been rectified. I do plan to get the Radeon 9700 at some point and would like a board that handles x8 AGP.

If you're going to get a Radeon 9700 I would wait a bit as the first ones wouldn't work with AGP 8X motherboards at all but did work on AGP 4X boards. Providing you get one of the newer 9700's (ver 1.3 onwards) it should work fine with this board.

I must have one of the first batch as I ordered before it became available, but I'm running a fairly basic system (not overclocked, mobo temp <40 C, no raid etc) so any design flaws may have limited effect in my case.
 
Abit IT7 Max 2 is awesome :)

Revision 2.0 should be available now or very soon check abits site for details of what it adds.

Extremely easy to run my P4 2.4B at 3.02ghz with no heat issues and silently ;)

Watching movies at wide720 on the AE100 is staggering.

I have a Saphire Radeon 9700pro.

Just debating on whether I should get rid of my AMD rig or use it as a file server?

You will be safe with Asus or Abit they gotta be the best two out there.

EDIT:
BTW the abit also has the 1.5v limit on the agp card.
 
Just to add that AGP 4x is 1.5v, while AGP 2x is 3.3v, so the GF2 will work fine at 1.5v.

But take note of the ATI 9700 Pro compatability probs with AGP 8x.

ATI in the us are RMAing first revision boards, but European peeps are not having suck luck (ATI doesn't sell anymore in Europe, just 3rd party authorised manufacturers).

i.e. don't bother contacting ATI if you've a problem, they don't care.

The 9500 Pro looks interesting aswell.

I'd also consider Epox mainboards.
 
I've never had a problem with epox mobo's on a amd cpu........

but i've killed 3 in a row p4....think they were 4SDA's..the boards are fine until you push them to hard and then they fold.....

In fact i still have 1 sat here with a 1.8a that does 2.8 in it....mind you i think they arnt to happy being freon cooled...


Come to think of it they were fine on air :p must just be me torturing them ;)


Like JSW said the abit IT7 max2 is a sweet board or i would also recomend the Asus P4T 533.... its a slightly expensive mobo but xomes with 256meg of the fastest ram on the planet...tis RDram mobo so u wouldnt be able to use ne ddr u had laying around.
 
Where's Monkey?

Just wondering how come you didn't learn not push them too hard after the first one went t*ts up. :D
 
Respectamonkeee,

If I may answer on your behalf???

In order to find the limit, one needs to go over the limit - some hardware dies- that's life :D (or death for some unlucky freon cooled CPUs).
 
Kramer.

Are you a speed junkie? :D I could never unserstand why people aren't just happy with what they have bought and if people crave speed then they should just save a little longer and get top spec. :p
 
CPU chips are not always only capable of what they are sold at, especially for countries qwhere summers are rarely really scorching. It's to do with marketing demands v.s quality of yield.

To an engineer, there are two types of things in life;

Those that need tweeking and those that don't need tweeking yet!

regards,
Rob.
 

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