Abit IC7-Max or Asus P4C800-E ???

I'm at the point of making a BUYING decision and need everyone's final opinion.

Please give me your OPINION on what mobo to buy.....and WHY

Abit IC7-Max
-or-
Asus P4C800-E

Processor will be Intel P4 3.0C GHz
Memory will be Mushkin DDR400

Whichever one is cheaper. They're both awesome and will give you EXACTLY the same performance, so there's no use deliberating on this. really.

I went with the P4C800 cuz it was cheaper, and I'm getting the same performance as when I had a -Max3.

Go figure...

yea im making a buying decision too, its a matter of preferance really. The Abit is quite a bit more expensive, but i love the Northbridge cooling on it.
I havent decided yet but i'll probably go with the Asus.

Goodluck

EDIT: Went with the Asus. The Abit reads temps badly and it has more than its fair share of problems. Go Asus unless you have some money-spending-syndrome

yep

o would go with the asus they are just more solid in my opinion and they come with the asus probe wich is very nice when you are overclocking.

i have both of these mobos and id recomend getting the asus p4c800-e and then putting active cooling on the northbridge.

the reason id suggest you get the p4c800-e over the ic7-max3 is due to the max3s problem with ram voltages losing stability over 2.8v and the ddrvtt is way off on 2.9 to 3.1 settings. the 6 sata channels on the max3 are nice but i dont think too many people are ever going to utilize all of them also the otes is pretty much a piece of eye candy doesnt really do alot as far as cooling the mosfets and capacitors goes.

the max3 has a better bios imo but the asus has the better board for the $

hawtrawkr said:

i have both of these mobos and id recomend getting the asus p4c800-e

Click to expand...

Same here. Personally I prefer the abit bios, but the Asus is no slouch. My computer boots slightly quicker on the Asus. The Asus loses 50 points in cpu on PCMark02 to the abit, but gains over 700 in memory. HDD is identical. My 3.3, 5.0, 12.0 volt lines are slightly higher on the Asus than the Abit. The Asus was easier to vdimm mod. The Abit is on the shelf. The Asus is in my computer.

I wasted weeks tweaking the MAX3 and I never got the results the P4C800-E gives me. However, oc'ing differs from board to board. If you must go Abit, go AI7. Your cpu will be slightly slower due to the 865 chipset, but the vdimm is a rock and memory really shines on the board.