Which is the bext OC mobo for a P4 ?

Please bear with me as I have been on the AMD front for so long that I have lost touch of what is recommended for Intel. But I want to get the Intel P4 1.6A 512K cpu and need a mobo with extreme OC functionality and must be capable of 533/400 fsb aswell as DDR333? support. I dont need any fancy onboard sound or LAN ports. All i want is omething that will see me through for another 2 years with plenty of OC such as being able to increment fsb by 1mhz, voltage changable on vcore/memory etc.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Neville

The epox 4G4A has all the stuff you asked for, the asus P4s533 is a good board but has less overclocking options.
There are several reviews on both of the above on the web.

There are not very many choices for a board with what you want right now maybe in a few weeks more boards will show up.

Yeah, been doing some limited research after my post and that moo seems to be the one to go for.

I see some oc'ers have been getting some good results with the Abit TH and BR series but aren't these getting on in age (i think).

Shuttle AV45GT2 has the new Via P4X266A which has USB2 and ata/133 support. These are the kind of features i want but i dont know if the Shuttle does any good overclocking.

Is P4X333 out on the market yet ?

Thanks

Asus P4B266 from what I have herd it is aswome and it was used to set the fastest CPU speed ever but that was with LN2.

The via P4X333 is supposed to be out now.
Via is selling their own board P4PB.
You can find out about it here,
http://www.viavpsd.com/product/P4PB_spec.jsp?motherboardId=23

Not really sure if any stores have it yet.

The abit TH series are rdram boards I belive.

My, a lot has changed since my P3-600E days and the 440BX chipset !!!!!

OK so from what i have gathered :

1. i845G supports DDR333
2. i850E supports rdram pc800 (pc1066 aswell ?)
3. any intel chipset does NOT support ata/133
4. DDR333 outperforms rambus pc800 but not pc1066
5. pc1066 is not official is it ?
6. rdram needs to be paired off

I think I'm getting a headache. So lloks like my choices are either DDR333 or PC1066 mobos ?

Thanks once again

I would avoid buying a rambus board for now, they are coming out with different memory than 1066 already 3200 and 4200 rimms.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1022073412

Yes current dual channel rdram boards need pairs.

Its impossible to keep up with all of this. I wanted to go P4-1.6A cause i was sick of waiting for the AMD Thoroughbred to arrive even though its release is June 10 then there still might be some heat issues with it. So I am looking for a solution now that will last me for at least 2 years. AND it must be very OC friendly.

Looks like i should stick with rambus and i850 for now but which mobo ?

If you want a 1.6a and rambus just get a abit TH7II.
If you want a 1.6a and ddr just get a epox 4A4G or Asus P4S533.
There is no way you can hope to future proof for two years.
By the end of this year intel will probably have a new socket design for P4's.

The system I have is very fast and rock solid but it's not the best for use with a 1.6a due to it's lack of pci bus locking but is great for overclocking with a 1.8a or higher 400 cpu.

Neville said:

My, a lot has changed since my P3-600E days and the 440BX chipset !!!!!

OK so from what i have gathered :

1. i845G supports DDR333
2. i850E supports rdram pc800 (pc1066 aswell ?)
3. any intel chipset does NOT support ata/133
4. DDR333 outperforms rambus pc800 but not pc1066
5. pc1066 is not official is it ?
6. rdram needs to be paired off

I think I'm getting a headache. So lloks like my choices are either DDR333 or PC1066 mobos ?

Thanks once again

Click to expand...

I've been sitting here for the last month with my trusty P-3 catching up on the changes too. Pretty amazing and a great, though confusing, time to upgrade.

1. I don't think i845G officially supports DDR333, but most of the mobo not manufactured by Intel seem to have added support.

2. i850E supports rdram pc800, but does not officially support pc1066. Again, most non-intel mobo's will support it, but as there is so little of it who knows how that will play out.

3. Intel chipsets do not support ATA133, but again, it seems most the many recent rounds on non-intel mobo's have included support for it.

4. On a non-overclocked basis, RDRAM Pc-800 is a little faster than DDR333, or its a wash. PC1066 is still the king. But do watch the prices for the PC1066, I doubt they will start off as reasonable as the pc-800 has gotten. Most likely pretty pricey, at least at first.

5. PC-1066 is not official.

6. Curren RDRAM needs to be paired off, though later versions will support one stick use.

A few additonal things I've learned:

1. Look for the ICH4 controller hub if you want USB 2.0. The 850E chipset is only validated with the ICH2 controller, which only supports USB 1.1. Many mobo companies are starting to use the ICH4 controller with the 850E, but most of the current mobo's do not.

2. Do NOT buy an Intel mobo if you want to OC.

3. Many of the newest 850E mobo's are limiting your FSB adjustments to 150, which really limits your ability to OC 1.6A, 1.8A, 2.26b, 2.4b, and 2.53b Northwoods.

4. Some of the older 850 mobo's will handle the B northwoods and pc-1066 just fine, such as the abit TH7-II, but be careful of older memory timers on these boards, which were spec'ed for 400 FSB speeds, nor 533.

5. Dual channel DDR is around the corner and will probably really give PC1066 a run for the money speedwise. This is important to me for upgrade reasons.

6. Watch for the ability to change voltage to the norhtwood, many boards do not support a bios changed range up to 1.8 or so volts, which is really important to OC this chip. There are modifications you can do if you are comfortable wire wrapping or otherwise connecting some of the pins on those teeny tiny norhtwoods.

7. Have fun choosing, lol, and report back!


Peace

I think dual channel ddr will kill rambus.
The only reason rambus is "good" now is because intel made a dual channel chipset for it and the only reason they did that is the single channel rdram was so slow it couldn't compete.

Something else I am noticing is even thou a high speed P4 is supposed to "need" alot of memory bandwith that while the new I850e boards with 1066rdam kill in sandra mem scores they get very little boost from it in games or apps and actual lose out to ddr boards in some benchmarks.

A good example of this is a new review of iwill's new I850e board here.

http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Iwill/P4R533/page7.htm

I pretty much agree that dual channel DDR will whoop some rambus butt, at least for the time being. And since I can afford to upgrade my memory or my mobo within the next few months after my in the works sytem is built, but not both, I'm betting on the DDR solution.

Yeah, I read that review of the Iwill board too and wondered exactly the came thing. All that 1066 goodness and massive bandwidth doesn't come across in the application benchmarks the way you'd think it would. Still learning here, lol.

Peace

So is that the reason that rambus is used in pairs ? I never understood why.

Looking at most of the available i850 and rambus mobos looks like they been out on the street for about 6-8 months.

The Asus P4S533 does still look like the better option since the Abits dont have 533 support .

Will the Rambus courtcase effect distribution of rambus memory ?

Neville said:

Will the Rambus courtcase effect distribution of rambus memory ?

Click to expand...

I doubt it will effect the distribution, but it will most likely effect the cost

And for a very nicely done comparision of all the platforms, excluding the VIA (which I'm dying to see hit the streets), take a look at:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/i845g-i845e/


Peace

Thanks for all the input. You know i wouldnt even be looking for new stuff if only i could upgrade my Celeron 1.1 and mobo without serious hacks that i have seen on some forums.
And of course if my Duron 1.2 didnt die on me.

OK i didnt even know about dual channel DDR. Will that work in existing mobos ? Or is that a new chipset ?


Thanks for the link to Xbit - they seem to be quite on the ball !

Dual DDR is an all new chipset, SIS and VIA are both supposed to release one soon, Intel will, but much later in the game. If you are ready to buy now, I wouldn't play the waiting game for dual DDR. I doubt we'll see working mobo's for sale until at least Sept.

Peace

Here's another good set of benchmarks, sadly no PC-1066. I don't necessarily agree with their conclusion, but the benchmarks are interesting.

Note: They sure picked an odd 845G mobo to use in the benches.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/p4chipsetsi845ei845gviap4x333/index.html

Peace

OK i have now decided on the Asus P4S533 with either a P4 1.6A or possibly the P4 2.2 533 since they expect a price drop of over $170 on it on monday. I'll also go for PC2700 cl2 512 ddrs.


OK my final questions now are :

1. If the cpu's are so power friendly why does the mobo require 2 power connectors ?
2. what is with the plastic (protector?) around the P4 cpu ? Do the heatsinks sit on top of them or are they removed and the empty holes are used by heatink/fans ?
3. Oh and most importantly I do not want a Cesna engine roaring in my vase but what heatsink/fan combo gives the best combo and cooling but without extreme noise - probably less than 38db.

I am so close to buying this....thanks for the quick learn guys!

I also wanted to ask if i need to get one of those shims to protect the cpu or are those just gimmicks ?

i love my setup the only issue is with norton as i cant get any updates for my viruses which is odd so i might have to reformat to fix that but oh well i got all my stuff stored on other drives.