Narrowed down mobo choices, need some advice please.

Hi guys, I am going to buy a mobo for my 1.6a that is reported to run stable at as high as 183-188 Mhz FSB at 1.7v on IT7, so I need a good overclocker. The RAM I will be using is OCZ PC3500 CL2 (2x256MB). The video card is Radeon 9700 Pro.

The "must have" features for the mobo are:

845PE chipset,
RAID (non SATA or at least SATA with IDE adaptors)
RAM/CPU ratios of 3:2 and 4:3
Good vCore adjustment options (>1.7V)
FireWire (not a must but would be a big bonus)

Basically need something that will take my proven 1.6a to 2.9 and perhaps accept an intermidiate CPU upgrade in the future when CPU prices come down and successful overclocks of ~4 GHz become attainable.

I don't have too many good o/c types of motherboards available where I live (Toronto, Canada) but there's a few ones I've been looking at:

ABIT BE7-II Raid (Cad $190 - US $122)
Abit IT7 Max 2 (Cad $269 ~US $170)
ASUS P4PE Raid Cad $229 ~ US $145)
Albatron 845PEV Pro non-Raid (Cad $168 ~US $115)

I've read a crapload of reviews on all of them and it looks like while having the most features the IT7 Max 2 and P4PE Raid do not allow to adjust vcore past 1.65-1.7 V which may hinder my overclock. The BE7-II R has a good minimum features set but "suffers" from the same vcore limitation. The Albatron seems to be a very impressive overclocker but it does not have Raid (I know the Raid version exists but it's not available where I live), in addition the only place that sells them here (www.bigfootcomputers.com) lists the non-Raid version for Cad $168 before tax (~US $115 before tax) which seems too much since it's sold in the US for about US $85.

I am not considering any GraniteBay boards at this time because of their prohibitive cost, absence of RAID on the first iteration boards and less than impressive performance gains when compared to overclocked 845PE boards.

I am welcoming any advice you guys may have to help my buying decision. And thanks for reading my lengthy post

Igor

Given those choices of boards I'd get the Abit IT7. I'd not worry about the voltage limitation as it is looking like anything over 1.7 can make you a possible candidate for Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome . I have a personal Bias against Asus (don't know why really, but I'd take a Gigabyte over an Asus any day... ) and I've not seen much on the Albatron.

Welcome to the forums!

Don't apologize for the length of your post. You've obviously done your homework and put a lot of thought into this. Any of the boards you mentioned would be a smart choice.

But for the best choice, I'm going to recommend the Abit BE-7 II RAID. I like this board a lot better than its IT-7 MAX2 brother. Price is a big reason why. Paying $50 more for the IT-7 doesn't buy you better performance. The only difference between these boards is in the feature set.

What you do get with the IT-7 are features I consider to be of dubious value. If you absolutely cannot stand to see a parallel or serial port when you look at the back of your computer once every six months, then the IT might help you sleep better at night. Otherwise, who cares what's on the I/O panel? And Serial ATA is several months ahead of its time. No drives are on the market yet and whatever performance boost you can get from S-ATA won't come until it is intergrated into the chipset. On the IT-7 (and all other current boards) the S-ATA is just an adapter sitting atop a conventional IDE port.


BHD

hi,

What is the BE7 II Raid different to the BE7 Raid, you know ?

Im not lucky with the BE's in one way (BE6 also) everytime i get one, 2 weeks later or so the -II Version follows, damned...

Got a BE6 V1.0 and a BE7Raid V1.0......The BE6 was a KillerBoard, the BE7 isnt that stable i exspected...


greetz

I think that was a typo, I thought the BE-7 didn't have the "II" hung on it like the BD-7, but I didn't want to inject any confusion.

(I checked the Abit site and there is only the BE-7 RAID. If there is going to be a "II" version, it hasn't been released yet.)

What kind of stability problems are you having?



BHD

Thanks for your replies and my apologies for the typo, I meant BE7-RAID, there's no "II" version of this board, I must have been thinking of BD7-II while typing.

I am leaning towards BE7-RAID for the same reasons BaldHeadedDork outlined in his post:

1. Price
2. No stupid SATA that you need additional adaptors for (even more $$)

Did anybody have a chance to compare the boards I've described above? I'd appreciate any comments, especially those based on personal experience with either of these boards.

Thanks
Igor