Best DDR MB for P4

Can some one reccomend the best MB for a northwood 1.8 with DDR, I will not run RDRAM. I was looking at the ASUS p4s33 or possibly one of the Abits. I really know nothing about these intel things. I just got my first Intel, the celeron in my sig about 1 month ago. The thing rips and I want a p4 that can rip my AMD apart. Im just sick of these ridicolus (sp) temps. Its time for a change. Also what is the best chipset to look at for theses boards, I think its the SiS 636 but im not sure, I haven't really researched it too much.

check out the asus p4b266

look for the i845D roundup at www.anandtech.com , according to them the Gigabyte GA-8IRXP is the best DDR P4 motherboard, plus it was the Gigabyte board that Tomshardware used to bring their 2.2GHz P4 to 3.0GHz.

the asus p4b266 has been used to bring the 1.6a to 2.8ghz

Go with the Asus P4B266, I have that and the Gigabyte, Gigabyte doesn't like a FSB over 125.

Jim

I am looking myself for the Asus P4Bs66 E with 'Raid' .... but cant find it

Where is it being sold

I'd give it another week, it seems it hasn't been put out to the suppliers yet

4BDA or 4BDA2+, best board hands down IMO for the p4, rock rock hard stable, decent price, NO problems that I can find anywhere.

btw that toms hardware review was crap, don't base your decision on that. Toms has really gone down the drain. Most of the boards they reviewed are not even worth buying. The asus varieties are also decent, Giga is nice but has warmboot problems, Epox 4BDA, 4SDA, priceless =)

Bah i'm still pointing at the asus p4b266 for best p4 ddr

Ok looks like its the p4s266, but why doesnt anyone like the 333 model, isnt there a need for more memory bandwith with the p4?

The 333 model is a different chipset

There are 4 chipstes for a P 4, one which I wont mention

I850 Intel with Rambus
I845D Intel with DDR
SiS 645 Sis P 4 Chipset

the p4s333 only goes up to 166mhz in bios, i believe, the p4b266 goes up to 200mhz

Did you set the correct AGP adnd PCI divisors in BIOS? And if that failed, did you try adding more cooling power on the northbridge (a fan blowing at the heatsink e.g)? I find it hard to believe that the Gigabyte 8IRX/8IRXP would not go above a 125 Mhz FSB. Then why those nice PCI/AGP dividers and 2/2.66 RAM multiplier?

I'm not positive but I think the giga's have the options but suffer from warm boot problems over a certain FSB. Also have heard but not positive that some of the Asus boards have problems over a certian FSB because of the pci ratio. The epox's let you lock it and never have to worry about it. Do a search on the Epox's across some of the hardware forums, I think I found one total that actually had a problem and the guy thinks it's his CPU and not the board. A while back I think I read about an enermax PS problem with the epox's but I havn't found anything on that in a long time. I've found multiple posts for nearly ever other board including the asus that people have had problems on, although the asus variety seem to have some of the least. I honestly think that you can't go wrong in any way by getting the Epox varieties. So far from what I can tell, not a single person has not been able to get 2.1+ out of the epox + p4 1.6a running rock hard stable, I'd even venture to say that not a single person has not been able to hit 2.2 stable but I think I read somewhere of a couple running at 2.1, that might just be that they havn't tried higher. Either or, there isn't a single thing wrong with the Epox varieties that I have found, why go with anything else? Not a single bad post about the board is priceless, you can't say that about any other board on the market right now from what I have found. Not to mention they are at an amazing price. I think the only thing that is hampering the Epox name right now is the capacitor issue on a few of the boards that is preventing some graphics cards from fitting properly but I'm not sure if it is present on the 4BDA, 4SDA varieties.

If you get this board you will be another happy member of our little crowd and will undoubtedly like all the rest of the Epox owners swear by your nutsack that these are the best p4 boards hands down.

Here is a fix for some owners that have a cold boot problem, Especially the Gigabyte, it allows a 1.85 default voltage, which it seems is causing the problems in certain boards, here it is: http://www.vr-zone.com/guides/Intel/Northwoodmod/


Jim

I would propose the EPOX 4SDA+ with the SiS645 chipset which is a little better than the Intel 845.

That mobo seems to have many overclocking options....and at least the reviews say that is rock stable when o\ced.

If you dont have problem waiting for a little while.....there is going to be a new version of this board out soon.

The EPOX 4SDA2+ with a newer revision of the SiS chipset....
the 645DX.

....DDR333,ATA133,RAID,........ech

the gigabyte 8srx is very nice. havent had any trouble with OCing it. plus it has a bunch of optiosn to keep your agp and pci within specs.