Recommend a motherbaord for me.

Recommend a motherboard for me.

I'm going to be building a system for a friend and he wants a P4 board. I've never used a P4 so I don't know what to look for in a motherboard.

Basically I'm looking for a board that overclocks well. When you list a board, please tell me if it has locked AGP/PCI speeds and what the maximum Vcore is.

Also, I'm not sure whether to get a DDR or RDRAM board.

Working backward, I'd recommend DDR over RDRAM. There's very little performance difference when overclocking, the fastest DDR is a little less expensive, it can move to future Intel chipsets, and you have a much larger group of motherboards to choose from.

Running vcore over 1.725 volts for extended periods is believed to cause Northwood P4 chips to fail, regardless of operating temperatures. So unless your friend likes to gamble with $200 (and higher) procs, maximum vcore output isn't as important for P4 systems as it is for Athlon rigs.

The best P4 overclocking board are those with the Granite Bay chipset. If he can afford it, that is clearly the way to go. But there are some great 845PE overclocking boards for half the price (or less) of a GB.

My favorites are the Albatron PX845PE boards, which include the funky silver model. I also like the Abit BE-7 RAID, it overclocks as well as the IT-7 MAX2 Rev. 2 but cost $50 less. And I like the Gigabyte GA-8PE667 for its mix of feature set, quality and overclocking. All have the AGP/PCI lock.

Stay away from any P4 board using a VIA or SiS chipset. No matter how good they look on paper every last one is a miserable overclocker.



BHD