I summon the WISDOM of all great OCForum Gods!

As an exposition I'll tell you a little about what i'm doing....I've got a 3.0E P4 proccessor (HT/Prescott core) and I need to buy a mobo to go along with it. What is the best mobo I can buy where money is not a limitation. I have been looking at Asus and MSI but i thought mayber there was an underdog somewhere that might be better.


Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. thanks

gigabyte 8knxp is a pretty good board and is prescott ready heres a link
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/MotherBoard/Products/Products_Spec_GA-8KNXP Ultra.htm#

Albatron also has their flagship PX865PE Pro II line that I use on both of my rigs.

Dual bios, ATA raid, SATA raid, CSA gigabit ethernet, best onboard sound available anywhere (Envy24PT, google for M-Audio Revolution 7.1), PAT-alike, three phase power regulation with three mosfets for each phase (instead of the standard two), and active northbridge cooling (solid copper heatsink AND fan).

All of that, plus full warrantied and certified Prescott support, for $130

I have one doing 284FSB on a 2,4C running memory at 1:1 (DDR568), I have the other running in my signature below.

Depends on your needs, really.

Are you going to overclock? Need stability? Onboard graphics or videocard?

I'd say:

OCing: Asus P4C800, Abit IC7-MAX3

Stability and features: Gigabyte

One thing you may want to consider is that new ATI chipset board. Looks optimized for Prescotts... the 9100 IGP Pro. But I'm not sure of who will be making them.

You could always consider an 865 board for less money. Not personally familiar with the Albatron one, but my Albatron 845 was a great board.

What do you guys think about the MSI Neo FIS2R?

It's a decent motherboard, so long as you're running an AMD Athlon64 Since you're using a 3.0E, there's just a pretty good chance that the pins won't line up right

I know that a lot of people don't know about Albatron, and it kinda saddens me, honestly because they kick a LOT of *** for relatively low price. For a little backing on my statement , I'll point you to quite a few reviews that loved the board:

Extreme Overclocking gives it a 9/10 score
Anandtech loves it, finding it equal to (and even beating in OC stability) their IC7-G testbed
Guru of 3D's reviewer loved it so much, he bought one for his personal main rig
HardAvenue gave it a 9/10 too

A few of the reviews touched on the price, which (when it was released) was pretty high. But now it's come down to ~$130 at NewEgg for the full retail package. I've personally touched and used four of the PX865PE Pro II boards and two of the PX845PE Pro IIs boards -- all of them kicked *** and took names.

The ONLY gripe I have about the 865 board is a lack of really high voltage options for the CPU; it stops at 1.6v. Since Prescotts operate on a default voltage of 1.35v or similar, the max voltage this board offers is WAY up where you probably shouldn't put your Prescott anyway.

Thanx guys for the help!

Albuquerque said:

It's a decent motherboard, so long as you're running an AMD Athlon64 Since you're using a 3.0E, there's just a pretty good chance that the pins won't line up right

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Good news... MSI makes a Neo FIS2R for each: AMD and Intel, obviously with different chipsets, but pretty well packed with goodies on both.

I haven't messed with the IC-Max 3 or the Albatron stuff, but would enjoy the opportunity to.

I really dig my MSI 875p Neo FIS2R board though. I think I even like it a bit more than my Asus p4c800e-dlx, each running p4 3.0c.

OK, so which is the better board between the MSI FIS2R and the Gigabyte 8KNXP?

I can already answer that: The MSI. My fault on the A64 confusion, google turned up NOTHING but A64 boards when I went searching for FIS2R

Thanks guys... it's really hard to decide on a board and i take your opinons very seriously. thanks

Now what about RAM...When it comps to upgrading RAM is definately not my area of expertise. Can some one recommend a setup on the MSI FIS2R board for RAM I was thinking about getting atleast 2gigs worth maybe 4 512 sticks?

greenopia said:

Thanks guys... it's really hard to decide on a board and i take your opinons very seriously. thanks

Now what about RAM...When it comps to upgrading RAM is definately not my area of expertise. Can some one recommend a setup on the MSI FIS2R board for RAM I was thinking about getting atleast 2gigs worth maybe 4 512 sticks?

Click to expand...

Since every batch and every pair will be different than the next, it's difficult to say what's a good set, but I can tell you about my personal experience with Geil 433/PC3500 matched pairs of 512MB. My first pair was allowing me OC's of 3.8, which I stepped back to 3.6 for peace of mind. After adding the 2nd pair of same for 2 GB (all 4 slots full) 3.6 became a little unstable after running for many hours (no changes made to accomodate the extra pair). I still have to mess with settings a bit, but it looks like my particular sets get funny running together when the RAM sees 406+ MHz on 2.55V, even though they're rated at 433.

I kinda' like the Kingston HyperX 500 for an easy way toward safe performance. May be worth a look.

Don't forget your power supply. Just have to mention that. A good PSU can make all the difference in the world for stability and how high you can push yer rig.

I was looking at the Hyper X as a matter of fact. Would i be able to run 4 512's in the FIS2R?

greenopia said:

Would i be able to run 4 512's in the FIS2R?

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Absolutely

Take note, though, that filling all 4 slots actually decreases OC potential in most cases, but you definitely want 2 slots for dual-channel.

Running all four slots does usually decrease total overclocked FSB capacity, but the significant increase in memory speed by using all four slots makes up for it.

Intel has a whitepaper where they explain how the 865 and 875 chipsets perform with differing numbers of single sided or double sided memory slots filled in single or dual channel. The net result was, all four banks filled with double-sided ram in dual channel mode yielded the absolute fastest result. A close second was single sided ram in dual channel mode in all four slots; a very close third was two double-sided sticks in dual channel mode.

try some simpletech nitro great pricing for the speed,stuff ocs like a champ!!.