have P4 2.53 - need MOBO suggestion, rma'ing my Asus P4T533

I just put this system together this week and I think the mobo is having issues...i'm not oc'ing it, but im getting random reboots and bsod's.

What I am looking for:

STABILITY (i'm not looking to oc...yet)
Onboard RAID (this is not a requirement, but a nice to have)
USB 2.0

I don't care about onboard audio or enet.

Something that can accommodate 4 sticks of ram would be preferred. The p4t533 can only take two which makes expansion options nil.

thanks in advance for help.

I have the abit IT7. there have been some issues with it, but it works for me. usb 2.0, raid (4 ports), lots of mem (i forget how much, i'm not at my comp right now).

Works great.. Oc's great too when you want to.

I also have the IT7 and everything has worked well for me. Only has three slots for memory though.

do u wanna stick w/ RDRAM or go to DDR??

oh crud..now that is a question.

well I can tell you this..with the scores I have been getting on this 4200 ram...I would love to keep it..it's truly amazing.

But I will opt for stability over a few percentage points on memory scores.

for RDRAM the Gigabyte 8Ihxp kicks ***. Its a very new motherboard - 6 PCI slots, 10 USB ports. Has onboard Raid, supports ATA 133, supports USB2, has a dual bios, also onboard network card (and sound card if you need that). Very stable, yes has space for 4 sticks of ram.

Yeah, all the reviews are pretty hot on the Gigabyte board...I got one myself. However, it takes 1066 RAMBUS, not 4200. In fact, the Asus P4T533 is the only board out that uses 4200 right now.

I assume you got your 4200 RAM included by ASUS with the board, so buying new memory is no problem?

BTW scores for 4200 RAM are about equal to 1066 RAM in most benchmarks, I've seen scores where 4200 came out on top by a few percent, and others where 1066 came out on top by a few percent. You could consider them pretty nearly equal.

genghis,

have you had any issues with your giga byte board?

what cpu did you get?

who makes the onboard raid? are you using it?

good bios? jumperless mode?

is it stable? any quirks?

and with regards to the 4200 ram. all i know is that on the 3dmark and pcmark testing...i get a really high score, but i'm always topped by someone who has oc'd their machine..but the one score where I consistently BEAT everyone is memory...unfortunately those bm's don't reveal the memory type..but I have to imagine these guys are buying the latest greatest mem 1066, and my score is much better.

So the giga byte board looks really good to me. seems to be a perfect match I would just like to hear more from ya. tia

I have the Asus P4T533-C, uses 1066MHz RDRAM. Rock solid stability. It overclocks fairly well as far as I can tell. I've never crashed or anything on this system, NEVER!! I've been running @2.4GHz for like a month now too.

For stability and great stock performance this is a good board. Not really a major overclocker (FSB only goes up to 156 via dip switches, 150 in BIOS) though.

At STOCK speeds I'm getting ~3.4MB/s memory bandwidth (the 232 pin is higher than the 182 pin I believe) and 12,900 3DMark2001SE.

IF you stick to DDR use the Asus P4B533-E

i was thinking I would use the RAM i ordered but have not yet returned...16 bit 1066 kingston mem...

and I'm leaning heavily towards the GigaByte board...I'mm make my decision by sunday night...

any other suggestions?

Greg, your board sounds sweet too. But the GB seems to have more of what im looking for.

Sorry to respond so late, I'm on vacation and don't have frequent net access.

Ex, the Gigabyte board is pretty solid, but does have a few quirks. Plus, like the other manufacturers' 850E boards, it overclocks a little but not a lot.

Be sure to check the threads about the GA-8IHXP from the past month in both this forum and the "Other Intel Boards" subforum. You'll see most people's feedback on the board.

Quirks I've noticed are:

Memory multiplier always reverts to 4X when you have 1066 memory plugged in, so trying to manually set 3X in the BIOS doesn't work.

My RAID array is only recognized by my OS (WinXP) in "APIC" mode, not in "PIC" mode. Apparently "APIC" mode somehow artificially gives you more than the standard 16 IRQ's...I have like 24 IRQ's. Wish I could turn it off, seems silly to me.

In answer to your other questions:

I have a P4/2.2 running at 2.4. I may be able to push it a little farther after vacation...

The onboard RAID is promise, and it's a "lite" raid so can only do RAID 0 or RAID 1. I'm using RAID 0 and it's pretty fast. It was easy to install the drivers. It does take an extra 10 seconds or so to load the RAID array on boot, though.

The BIOS is jumperless, and the current BIOS (F6) lets you go up to 156 MHz. Usually it's tough to get even this high, though, due to the 1066 RDRAM having trouble at higher speeds. Too bad for me, since I know my P4 could be pushed a little farther.

Overall I like the board a lot and it's stable at stock to moderate o/c speeds. I really like having the newer ICH4 Intel southbridge...it's kind of like what the 850E chipset would have been like if Intel hadn't been half-assed.

- G

or u could wait a bit longer for Epox's 850e board. 4T4A+.

sorry for the late reply. guess u've already hit the "buy" button huh? sooooooo, what did u get, and be sure to let us know how u like it too!

Asus Board

For DDR-Ram I would take the P4B533-E (with Raid, Sound, Lan and Firewire). It does even oc very well.

If you don't intend to oc your system, try the new P4S8X.

For RDRAM, normaly P4T533-R is the best choice.
Maybe there was another issue perhaps with your CPU or RAM that you didn't notice..