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P4P800 vs. IS7

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TheNamelessOne

Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2002
Location
under a killing moon
Ok I know there has been threads about this already but I'm still confused about a few things. I want to know, which board is the most stable when overclocked?(I don't mind if it's a little behind in overclocking as long as its more stable) Which board has the least compatibility problems? Which board's northbridge cooler is better? Which board has more memory ratio and voltage options?
That's all I can think of for now, thanks in advance for answering.
 
The Asus P4P800 would be a little more stable. Abit is living on the edge with a very fast bios and is the faster of the two boards. The IS7 has active cooing on the northbridge but a 40mm fan is easy to fit to the P4P if needed. The memory ratio's are the same but the P4P goes to 2.85vdimm in the bios vs the IS7 goes to 2.8vdimm. You should note however, that the Asus boards undervolt and the Abit overvolts. So for voltages, I would say they are about even on actuals.
 
Which board generally overclocks better? I heard with Springdales it's hit or miss, some overclock good others not so good. While canterwoods are more consistent. Is that true or BS?
 
Ok I've completed my order at newegg and I did something a little risky. I didn't get either of those two boards. Instead I got the P4C800 Deluxe refurbished for $129. Did I make a good choice? I know it was better to ask before ordering, but I was afraid they would run out of stock while I'm waiting for a response. I also got a 2.4c to go along with it.
 
TheNamelessOne said:
Ok I've completed my order at newegg and I did something a little risky. I didn't get either of those two boards. Instead I got the P4C800 Deluxe refurbished for $129. Did I make a good choice? I know it was better to ask before ordering, but I was afraid they would run out of stock while I'm waiting for a response. I also got a 2.4c to go along with it.

http://www.abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=49225&perpage=15&highlight=p4c800&pagenumber=1
see mavericksy19's post near the bottom.
Lots of P4C800's being returned for P4C800-E's (hence the refurbished ones on newegg), see the link above for the differences to see if it matters to you. I'm ordering the p4c800 as well, that's a great deal, and I don't care too much about the differences in them since I'm only using 1 HD (no RAID) and wireless internet (no ethernet).

There's also a review for the board (non E version) on hardocp.com
 
Ok so the RAID and ethernet is on the PCI bus. I am planning on using both. So this is supposed to slow down the PCI bus. But can you actually tell a difference in performance or does it just score lower in benchmarks while you don't notice any performance decrease?
 
TheNamelessOne said:
Ok so the RAID and ethernet is on the PCI bus. I am planning on using both. So this is supposed to slow down the PCI bus. But can you actually tell a difference in performance or does it just score lower in benchmarks while you don't notice any performance decrease?
I dunno, but the reviews say the CPU utilization rate hits 50% with RAID. Still, if you want the P4C800-E, you'll have to pay $70 more than the refurbished one. I just ordered the same board you ordered this morning and it hasn't come yet. You have 7 days to return it. Your other option would be abit I spose IS7-G or IC-7 G. Both have the ICH5-R raid, which is better than the ICH5 raid on the P4C800 (the -e has the ICH5-R raid). The abit boards have poor onboard sound though. I think the P4C800-E would be your best bet if you can swing it. I haven't heard anything bad about it, and I know I read a few posts where unhappy people have switched from the Abit boards to the P4C800-E and been quite satisfied.
 
Getting back to the original topic, I had some questions too:

Does the Asus P4P800 have the same overclocking abilities? One thing I thought that was cool on the IS7 can lock the PCI and AGP speeds, can the P4P800 do the same thing?? Also is the SATA Raid on the P4P800 the problomatic one?
 
Chuck, I think its a fair compromise to have better stability rather then the extra 1-5% performance diff. I'd be looking at what board provides best stability 1.
Personally, I have only mildly overclocked my system, running at 210x14 with my 2.8C. I really don't need anymore.
I see my mates overclocking their systems way beyond spec and even with good cooling and high spec RAM, problems come up now and then (they have since downclocked theirs too ;) ). I on the other hand have had no problems what so ever.



What I'm saying is if you need that 1000FSB+ or a p4 running 3.5Ghz+, go buy the cooling, go buy the ram and what ever else you need.
I'd ask my self what do I really need, otherwise your wasting your $$$.
 
chuck said:
Getting back to the original topic, I had some questions too:

Does the Asus P4P800 have the same overclocking abilities? One thing I thought that was cool on the IS7 can lock the PCI and AGP speeds, can the P4P800 do the same thing?? Also is the SATA Raid on the P4P800 the problomatic one?

Do you mean the P4C? When the thread was started the topic was the P4P, but since namelessone bought a P4C800 deluxe we've been talking about that board. I was mistaken when I said that the CPU usage is 40% under RAID, that was from the review of the P4P 800, I got confused too. Anyways, the P4C800 does not have good RAID performance. Go read the hardocp.com reviews. If you want raid I would get the P4C800-E. The P4C800(/-E) is supposed to be a very stable board. If you are going to overclock a lot you should know that the northbridge heatsink is only a heatsink with no fan. You might need to cool it down with a fan or buy a heatsink for it. That's all in the review as well. Oh and for both boards you can lock both PCI and AGP. I've heard pluses and minuses for all of the boards, like on Abit's the mic doesn't work, on Asus sometimes the audio can break up, little things like that. All we can do is read reviews, look on the forums, but in the end you're just going to have to pick a board and buy it from a place where you can return it if it doesn't work out the way you hoped it would.
 
Jules, so you are saying the CPU usage does not go up that high on the P4C800? Keep in mind I will be using the standard IDE raid not the SATA raid. I also have a Silicon Image PCI raid card. Would I be better off using that for raid?
 
TheNamelessOne said:
Jules, so you are saying the CPU usage does not go up that high on the P4C800? Keep in mind I will be using the standard IDE raid not the SATA raid. I also have a Silicon Image PCI raid card. Would I be better off using that for raid?

Well IDE Raid is a little higher CPU usage than SATA, like 3% vs. 2%, lot different than the 59% they were getting for some RAID setups on the P4P800, dunno why I confused them, dayum similar model #'s. Dunno if the silicon image would be better. I guess you could compare benchmarks online.
 
hi,
i have the same sort of problem but i dont have that kind of money to buy a p4c800 so what would you recommend?

i was looking at the ic7, p4p, etc...so what would you say?

the rest of my system i will be getting as well is:
p4 2.8c
ocz gold 3700 2x256mb
40gb 8mb cache
enermax 465w
etc...

so what do u think?

thanks :D
 
I had both boards.. The P4P800 was more stable at a higher speed, although the IS7 got returned because it was defective... It keep crashing all the time...

Personally I wouldn't order anything refurbished.. I hope it works out for you..
 
Good Day,

I read your thread and just wanted to add that from my experience, the p4p800 dlx rev 1.02 BIOS1008.004 performs quite well with the onboard VIARAID CHIP. When i read the reviews at hardocp and lost circuits i was quite sure that this would not be the case though.

My results with HD Tach2.61 show that the CPU util. is 3.1% and burst rate in the high 80's MB/sec. Tested with 2 IBM 60GB DTLA...60 ICL...60, both 7200/2mb cache, Max read is 64991kps, min 19497, avg. 38662. I find that quite satisfiing. Well good enough for me and my music stuff. Tested with latest VIA driver 1.20 , (via_6410raid_120) under XP SP1. For the concerns with the onboard LAN chip, i read in a german mag (14/03c't) that max throughput would be 52mb/sec. Funny enough though, if you activate PAT the throughput goes down to 29mb/sec! (the mag tested the board with and without PAT/Hyper-Path). Those numbers were measured with a Solid-state-disc (RAM-disc) on PCI active. Without PCI activity, under ideal circumstances, numbers are 80/72 mb/sec. CSA boards usually deliver up to 111mb/sec (intel or Siemens) regardless of PCI activity.

Hope those numbers help

cheers

bear

btw, the review at Toms was quite useless i thought...
 
thanks for the info! I heard the new bios supposedly fixed some of the issues with the P4P...
Yeah, Tom's review was awful.

bearulez said:
Good Day,

I read your thread and just wanted to add that from my experience, the p4p800 dlx rev 1.02 BIOS1008.004 performs quite well with the onboard VIARAID CHIP. When i read the reviews at hardocp and lost circuits i was quite sure that this would not be the case though.

My results with HD Tach2.61 show that the CPU util. is 3.1% and burst rate in the high 80's MB/sec. Tested with 2 IBM 60GB DTLA...60 ICL...60, both 7200/2mb cache, Max read is 64991kps, min 19497, avg. 38662. I find that quite satisfiing. Well good enough for me and my music stuff. Tested with latest VIA driver 1.20 , (via_6410raid_120) under XP SP1. For the concerns with the onboard LAN chip, i read in a german mag (14/03c't) that max throughput would be 52mb/sec. Funny enough though, if you activate PAT the throughput goes down to 29mb/sec! (the mag tested the board with and without PAT/Hyper-Path). Those numbers were measured with a Solid-state-disc (RAM-disc) on PCI active. Without PCI activity, under ideal circumstances, numbers are 80/72 mb/sec. CSA boards usually deliver up to 111mb/sec (intel or Siemens) regardless of PCI activity.

Hope those numbers help

cheers

bear

btw, the review at Toms was quite useless i thought...
 
Rashio_UK said:
hi,
i have the same sort of problem but i dont have that kind of money to buy a p4c800 so what would you recommend?

i was looking at the ic7, p4p, etc...so what would you say?

the rest of my system i will be getting as well is:
p4 2.8c
ocz gold 3700 2x256mb
40gb 8mb cache
enermax 465w
etc...

so what do u think?

thanks :D

I would go with the IS7, or P4P. The mic input does not work on the abit boards. This is a known issue that hasn't been fixed yet. I recommend you go on the abit and asus forums and use the search feature to read posts about the boards before you decide so you can determine which one is most stable. From what I've read its pretty much a toss-up between the two, but I think the P4P is probably a little more stable. I don't have either board, this is my opinion from what I've read online. This review may help you as well. http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Intel/865PE/
 
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