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Newbie to P4 mobo!

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!!tio!!

Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2001
Location
Hong Kong SAR, China
Well.... just wanna ask something

1, i850 and i845, which one is better

2, Socket 423 n 478, which one is better

3, what is the diffrence when using SDRAM instead of RDRAM in P4

4, Which motherboard company is best at making P4 mobo
 
1. 850 supports RDRAM. 845 supports SDRAM. Which one is better? See #3.

2. Socket 423 is the socket initially used by the P4. It's upgrade path is limited to the 2.0ghz P4. Socket 478 is the newer socket which not only supports current .18 micron P4s, but will support upcoming .13 micron P4s with 512k cache (Northwood). 478 is the better choice.

3. The difference between SDRAM and RDRAM is basically price and performance. SDRAM is cheaper but does not perform well with P4 compared to RDRAM. RDRAM is more expensive and has to be used in pairs, but is a much better match for a P4. RDRAM is definitely the way to go. BTW, RDRAM is getting cheaper all the time. Almost to the point where it isn't much of an argument against it (ie. 128 mb RDRAM is going for about $35-45.) However, very soon VIA's new P4 chipset will be out which supports DDR. DDR is cheaper than RDRAM but performs almost on par with it and doesn't have to be used in pairs. IMO, RDRAM is still the best choice if performance is what you're looking for.

4. Which mobo company is the best at making P4 mobos? Well, that's tough to answer. I guess it depends what you going to do with it. I would recommend Intel motherboards if you're not an overclocker. However, since you're at Overclockers.com I assume you're interested in overclocking potential. I have both the Abit TH7-Raid (423 socket) and the Abit TH7II-Raid (478 socket). I hesitate to recommend the TH7II because it still has some bugs that need to be worked out. I feel pretty confident that Abit will release a new BIOS to fix them. It's not TOO bad though and I'm able to overclock my 2.0 to 2.5 Ghz (that's with watercooling and a 120w pelt). Asus is releasing their 478 socket mobo (P4-E?) soon and if it's as good as thier 423 socket board (P4-T) I think that would be the one to go with.

Hope that answers your questions!

Later, Doc.
 
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