Asus P4T-E vs. Abit TH7-II

[domain311]

Still haven't figured out which to get...I will be overclocking it and although I am fairly new to this, I am not really bothered by which is "easier" to OC. Whether it has RAID or not, is not a concern either. Which board OC's higher may influence my purchase. It will not be water-cooled, but air-cooled to the max. Price is close enough between the two that it has no influence on the purchase for me. The cpu I buy is still up in the air too Either the northwood 1.6, 1.8 or 2.0. I hear a lot about the 1.6 having better OC's, but I'm still not sure which to get. Any help is appreciated

 

[ol' man]

I like the TH7-II cause it allows vcores to 2.2v and the PCI/AGP will always be in spec no matter the FSB of the chip itself. That is what I would go with. ABIT is always ahead of the rest for BIOS options with soft menu being the first.

Here is a quote on what the TH7-II is capable of.

SoftMenuIII is ABIT's selling point. On the TH7-II, we will still see SoftMenuIII which I think it's time to call it SoftMenu IV. The reason is because it's the first time, we see a nc AGPCLK/CPUClkup in the BIOS. That is to say, according to my interpretation, the PCI and AGP clk will remain at 33Mhz and 66Mhz no matter what FSB you're operating at. Well, this seems to be what we have been wanting as the PCI and AGP cannot withstand clocks of 40Mhz and 89Mhz (using a 2/3 multiplier - default e.g. if FSB = 100 your AGP will operate at = 2/3 x 100 = 66Mhz. If you run the FSB to 120Mhz, AGP will be running at 120x2/3=80Mhz. So with the Async option, you can safely protect your PCI and AGP cards within specifications of 33 and 66Mhz. Included options are 2/3, 2/4 which is 1/2 (for 133Mhz operation) and FIX (which is 33 for PCI and 66 for AGP).

Check this for more info.

http://www.ocworkbench.com/hardware/abit/th7iiraid/th7iiraidp3.htm

I odubt the ASUS board will allow the PCI/AGP to be in spec no matter the fsb.

TH7-II should be your choice for this reason alone.

 

[jdmcnudgent]

abit board, and the 1.6 or the 1.8, hands down, or wait a week, and the price for the nortys will be droppin.

 

[domain311]

Thanks for the posts...yeah, I'm in no rush so I figured I'd wait till about mid-april for the cpu

 

[jdmcnudgent]

by then you will be able to get an es p4.

 

[Yodums]

The 133fsb of chips should be out by sometime in April anyways. The TH7II would be the better pick. I found Asus to be very picky when problems occur, their board do seem abit buggy from times to times, and Abit seem very strong indeed.

 

[domain311]

Abit it is then

Thanks

 

[MospeadasDark]

The Asus P4T-E does not have the PCI/AGP lock in spec feature. I know because I'm using one=) The onboard sound poops out around 112FSB. I only chose to go w/ Asus's board because it was $10 cheaper and I wasn't going to use ide raid. I decided to keep my upgrade at $1000 shipping included.

Another thing the P4T-E doesn't have is the adjust FSB by 1mhz increments.

Otherwise it runs peachy.

1.8A@2070 1.5V
P4T-E
Corsair 1GB RDRAM@460
8500 128MB DDR
-----brought over from old system-----
M-Audio 1010
Seagate Cheetah 33.6GB
Seagate Elite 22GB

If you plan to run plain stock then either one would be great. If you want to overclock go Abit, but wait for PC1066 RDRAM to come out(couple months). I couldn't get all 4 sticks to do 533FSB but I could get 2 to do it. Still I want a gig of ram to use. Most lower speed Northwoods hit 133FSB on air after a lil Prime95 workout.