Help Picking A Mobo

Which one of these Mobos?

Im looking to purchase a new motherboard for the computer I will be building. I have heard alot of talk about the new Granite Bay Motherboards and alot about the P4PE also. I was wondering what motherboard would be best for me. The things Im mainly concerned with are: Raid, 6 Channel Sound, Lan, AGP 8x, and the use of DDR Ram. I will probably overclock a processor to use to, so I would like for the motherboard to be good for overclocking.

Thanks.

Well P4PE only has 4x AGP so I guess it's out of the picture. Just get a i845PE board with all the features you want or wait for Granite Bay.

Welcome to the forums.

I'm going to recommend you take some of the features off of your shopping list. Two in particular, AGP 8X and the Dual DDR of the Granite Bay boards, are buzzwords with little (D-DDR) or no (AGP 8X) performace advantage to justify the added price.

Six channel sound is something else you should look at closely. It sounds great and yes, if you have a 6.1 speaker setup you can plug it straight in. But being a 6.1 system means nothing for sound quality. What often happens is motherboard makers specify older audio chipsets to save money and the quality of the onboard sound is rarely better than a five year-old sound card. If you are concerned with sound quality, get a current PCI sound card.

You'll also see some boards with Serial ATA connectors in place of the standard parallel ATA-100 ports. Future hard drives will use S-ATA instead of parallel cables, but those drives aren't on the market yet. (The first drives, from Seagate, were supposed to ship at the first of December but that didn't happen. No word yet on when they will be released.) Starting maybe a year from now I would want to make sure any motherboard I bought had S-ATA, but until the drives become available its a cart before the horse situation.

Looking for a board with LAN and RAID doesn't have substantial pitfalls, so knock yourself out.

The best boards out now, I think, are those using the Intel 845PE chipset. They are the most stable and reliable Intel boards on the market today, and they are the best overclockers, and they cost less than half the price of a Granite Bay board.

My favorite manufacturers are Abit, Asus and Gigabyte. They have the best quality in my experience, and they are among the best overclockers, too.



Good luck and I hope this helped-

BHD

Gigabyte's "GA-8PE667ULTRA" Support upto 667Mhz FSB, 3DDR333, ATA133 RAID, 6Ch Audio, Intel Pro LAN, USB2.0
here is the link to it http://www.giga-byte.com/products/8pe667ultra2.htm only 4X AGP

Update

I have been reading posts, and searching net and I have found the motherboards that I like. Which one of these would say is best?

Abit IT7-MAX2 V2.0
(What is difference between normal version and version 2.0?)

ASUS P4PE
(Probably Gold Version)

Giga-Byte GA-8PE667 Ultra 2

Are there any other motherboard I should consider? These are the ones I have heard of the most, and look the best to me, besides the Granite Bays.

Thanks =)

All 3 are good boards but the Gigabyte is a better selection IMHO (they have lower RMAs on their mobo’s) and are all in all more reliable out of the box I have always had better luck with their mobo’s over the others but that’s just me

RMA? What does that mean? The Gigabyte is probably the one Ill get. The P4PE Gold would be good too wouldnt it?

RMA's refer to returned motherboards

The normal version of the Abit IT-7 MAX2 used the older Intel 845E chipset. Instead of changing the board name, they call the 845PE board the MAX2 Version 2.

I'd recommend the Gigabyte, too.



BHD

I have the P4PE Gold Edition board, and I am waiting for those SATA drives to come out. It is a great board, very stable. I have got my 1.8a to 2.27 without even trying. All in all it is a great board.

I have also heard really good things about the abit and the gigabyte boards.

But I can recommend the Asus P4PE

Do you guys think 8xAGP is that important?

I just found the GA-8INXP (will be released next week) this is a sick MOBO take a look...but be warned it cost big $$ (starting at $240USD)

* AGP 8X Intel® chipset based motherboard
* dual channel DDR Pentium 4 motherboard supports up to 4GB memory size
GIGABYTE patented technology Dual Power System (DPS) design
Supports Hyper Threading Technology processor up to 3.06GHz or above
Integrated Silicon Image Serial-ATA interface for high speed storage devices
Integrated Intel® Kenai 32 Gigabit LAN network connection
Promise IDE RAID 0, 1 function plus UDMA ATA 133 support
Provides 6 USB 2.0 ports for high-speed connectivity
Integrated high quality 6-channel AC'97 audio with S/P-DIF function
GIGABYTE patented DualBIOS™ technology design protects BIOS from virus attack
Gigabyte unique EZ-Fix™ AGP slot and memory DIMM slot with Anti-Burn™ design

Well I was going to pay about $180-$190 for a different mobo. Guess if its that great I could go head and spend an extra $50. I plan on getting an 8X AGP Card sometime this year too, so I guess better go head and get a mobo with 8x. So is that mobo really good?

All the boards mentioned seem ok,,,, But Ive went with Alatrons and not looking back. The one thing that sticks out in your post concerning features is raid.... You know ide raid is junk.. Well I hope you know and dont find out the wrong way.. What I would do is get one of the striped down boards and add good sound, and scusi and forget it

have fun
psy