Now that Granite bay is out, which motherboard OTHER than granite bay suggested?

[Nails]

Hmm feeling let down..

Been holding off purchasing board and cpu waiting for granite bay..

Now that the first asus granite bay board review has been published and shows a astonishing lack of any real performance benefit for what will probably be an inflated price, I would like to ask this question:

What board besides a granite bay would you suggest?

My needs...
I would like but not NEED raid support
Onboard everything (lan, sound etc) would be nice but not essential
Stability and ability to overclock essential.

so abit it7 max2 v2 comes to mind, or the bd-7 or the asus p4pe as well

any suggestions?

second question, what I am I going to do no with the 2 sticks of corsair 512meg cas 2 2700 mem I bought in advance for the granite bay? Guess optimally I should sell them and go purchase some 3200 or 3500 instead..

sigh

 

[Buzzdog]

Nails,

Hold off, GB sill may be worth it. In that review it looks like the video card used for the tests was the bottle neck.

Buzzdog

 

[lightbulb8817]

I agree, wait for more results.

GB has double the bandwidth of DDR 266 and hopely someone will figure out a way to run DDR 333 on their (kinda like with the P4B533).
P4's are bandwidth hungary.

 

[Buzzdog]

The problem with trying to run DCDDR with the 3:4 memory ratio is you will create a bottleneck at the front side bus. DCDDR is basically a cheaper alternative to RDRAM. It is the same concept. Now if you want to run DDR333, just get a CPU that will run at 167 fsb, then you get the benefit of a faster CPU and faster memory bandwidth. I cant remember where I read it, but it layed it out real well. The PIV has 4 pipes for memory to the cpu. Regular DDR chipsets only give you 2 pipes in effect. That is why you wanted to use the 3:4 ratio on the memory. When you use DCDDR you have 4 channels. So you would not see much if any performance increase by running your memory faster then your system FSB. What I do see with GB though is, we should be able to run more aggresive memory timings. I would like to have some one that knows answer this question. If you went with a pair of DDR sticks that were rated to run at say 200MHZ or higher at cas2, could you run those sticks at cas1.5 at a lower fsb of say around 175fsb???. It is kind of reverse logic, You usally have to loosen up the memory timings to make some overclocks stable the higher you go if your memory is holding you back. So if you run memory at a speed lower then it is rated at, can you make the timings more aggressive then what they are rated for???


Buzzdog

 

[BaldHeadedDork]

I think I'm going to go with an 845PE board, probably the Gigabyte because I like its feature set, and run two sticks of Corsair XMS3200 or 3500 CAS2.

The memory should be good to go in the second generation of Dual DDR boards and 667FSB Prescott P5 CPU's.


BHD

 

[Kunaak]

that review was pretty disappointing.

I personally wanna see more reviews and more opinions.
it can't be THAT useless.

if that review has it's way, there no point in the GB at all.

 

[Cyuet]

that review was pretty disappointing.

I personally wanna see more reviews and more opinions.
it can't be THAT useless.

if that review has it's way, there no point in the GB at all.

Yes, it look suck! Hope when it come out will be better.


http://www.ocworkbench.com/2002/asus/p4g8x/p4g8xp1.htm

 

[Nails]

I see what you mean buzzdog about a possible vid card bottleneck.. but then I said to my self, hold on a sec....

Does this mean that I will _only_ see a significant difference in FPS / real world numbers if I have a super-duper-top-of-the-line-even-though-there-are-no-games-that-support-its-max-potential video card, such as a $600 CAD Radeon 9700?.. if this is so then I can tell you that "Ross" with his need to push his dozens of motherboards to the max with a getto radeon 7500 / 8500 will be seriously dissapointed...

The canadian in me shudders at the concept that I would need to purchase a 600 vid card just to see a difference in a 300 motherboard. Rather than staying with a very reasonable 150 to 200 vid card. I mean I certainly have the cashflow to purchase a top of the line system (with a 97000 pro, prometia cooling and solid state hard drives, 22 inch plasma screen titanium case or something or other) but I don't as it seems somehow immoral to spend that much cash on my computer. Sorry off topic a sec.. ignore that pseudo-philosophical/moral rant that was beginning...

All I am trying to say is that if it takes a review with max everything (video card esp) to show a significant difference between a 845pe motherboard and a granite bay, then I believe that it is probably worth the money to the more common sense overclockers (no insult intended to the others btw) to purchase the 845pe chipsets and a reasonable vid card and wait another year for a more mature dual ddr boards, prescots, and more reasonably priced super-duper-high performance vid cards to come out.

Just my 0.0303 (CAD exchange rate )

P.S.

I think there are 2 types of overclockers out there.. generally speaking. Those that want to save some money and get increased performance (and those who will have reasonable video cards such as radeon 8500 and g4 4200) and those that want to go to the limit money is no option spend much more$$ to speed up a slower chip than would be spent just buying a faster chip just to prove you can do it...

Either type is fine, and I am placing no judgements on either group. I belong to the first type who chooses with care his computer investments and slowly upgrades incrementaly with value upgrades, and I can equally value the second group who I vicariously look on with more than a twinge of guilty envy. ;>

I shudder when I think of what I am running right now... A Abit BH-6 bx mother board that had initially an old sl2w8 Pentium II 300 -> easy o/c to 450 that I have slocketed to a celeron 566 at 850mhz chip for about 2 years... Also incrementaly increased the videon cards from a 16 meg voodoo banshee to 32 meg Nvidia GF2 mx to (as of yesterday) Radeon 8500 le easily overclocked to 8500 level... and you know what, even with this "slow" system I can still play UT2003, max payne, warcraft 3, neverwinter nights, and on FPS still keep in the top 3 of any server I log onto...

Its not always necessary to have a top of the line system, but make intelligent upgrade choices.. I thought Granite bay was going to be one of those "upgrade cusp" points but evidently not...

Opinions?

 

[Divine-Madcat]

Well, i can agree that it is not neccisary, and you can run games and stuff just fine on older system.

But, i do like having the best i can get, for a few reasons.
1) I am always ahead of the curve, and if i cant afford an upgrade, i know i can live for a while, since i have better than needed.
2) Sure, while i can run games, i like my games to look as good as they play. For me, its eye candy all the way. yeah, gameplay is important, but if it is s bunch of blurry stick figures, it wont be as fun as it can be.
3) The sheer thrill of it...

I would love to call myself an extreme overclocker, but cash flow stops that. i cant afford prometas, or even watercooling. I am forced to ghetofi my heatsinks. However, i can agree with you about the 1st two OC classes. But your forgot the third.
3) There are the people that buythe best money can buy, buy an extra set of that, mod it till it bleeds, and then go for the high scores.

 

[Buzzdog]

Nails,

I would like to see a review of at least a TI4600 based card, You can find them now for approx $250US. That review just seemd to show the limits of the TI200 video card is what I saw. The way I look at GB, it is the DDR version of Rdram. In the games that I play, especially WWII online, memory bandwidth pays huge dividends. I guess it will boil down to whether you want to pay the extra cash. The GB motherboards will cost more then other motherboads. But by using DDR in pairs, you will get RDram performance. In the end, it is all a wash IMHO, because the money you save on the ram you will have to spend on the motherboard. For the most part, I look at DCDDR as an alternative to RDram.

Buzzdog

 

[kiltz]

where online are they selling this board? i was gonna go the rdram pc1066 route, but this looks tempting since im running on a 256 pc2100 already.
also could i put my p4 1.6 willy on there and OC to take full use of the Dual DDR bandwidth? i know my 1.6 is only 400fsb

 

[SBeaver]

where online are they selling this board? i was gonna go the rdram pc1066 route, but this looks tempting since im running on a 256 pc2100 already.
also could i put my p4 1.6 willy on there and OC to take full use of the Dual DDR bandwidth? i know my 1.6 is only 400fsb

A 1.6" willy is never a good thing.
You should really considering getting a new one

 

[shadow]

head on over to tbreak

their review of the GB impressed me....

shadow

 

[*foo]

The problem with trying to run DCDDR with the 3:4 memory ratio is you will create a bottleneck at the front side bus.

Can't happen, because E7205 doesn't have a 3:4 ratio. Only 1:1. You have to get the FSB to 166MHz to get DDR333.

 

[Coz]

Can't happen, because E7205 doesn't have a 3:4 ratio. Only 1:1. You have to get the FSB to 166MHz to get DDR333.

Everybody - this is *foo, easily the most knowledgeable guy I've ever met in all the various forums I've visted. He's an expert on Intel chipsets, motherboards and processors. Quite simply the man. He's 100% badass though so many will feel his wrath, but it's worth it for the creamy goodness of his insight and knowledge. Good to see you here buddy.

 

[Buzzdog]

*foo,


I stand corrected. I am still new to the game of overclocking. I was going off of an article I read. It broke it down in laymens terms why you did not need to go over 1:1 memory ratio when using DCDDR and PIV's. Since PIVs have the quad memory pipes, and DCDDR gives you 4 channels, you should be running at top efficiency. If you did try to go over 1:1 then you would create a bottleneck. Thank you for pointing out that GB will only support 1:1. Like I stated, I am still ignorant about alot of the technical break down on the new chipset.

On a side note, From some of the reviews I have come across, if you are lucky enough to find the right magic combination of CPU/MB/MEM, then 190fsb just might be attainable. I personally would be happy with 180fsb and a DCDDR set up. I am just waiting for a c1 2.26 or 1.8a. I think those 2 chips will give me the best chance of reaching those kinds of FSB.

*foo, do you know anything about the gigabyte GB board? I am interested in knowing how high the FSB will go, and what options you have as far as memory timings goes. I may be wrong, but their power on the board will do one of 2 things in my opinion. It will either give you more stable overclocks, or it will be a disaster by making the whole process more complicated. I am refering to the 6 phase set up on the motherboard. I belive it will have locked pci/agp. Thanks in advance.

Buzzdog

 

[*foo]

Nope, don't know a thing about the Gigabyte board. Haven't had my hands on one yet. The only board I've had any experience with is the Intel E7205 board.

Sorry.

A good resource for technical information on new Intel chipsets is always the datasheet. You can get the E7205 datasheet from here, if you're so inclined.

 

[zrx]

I was tired of the waiting and uncertainty

So I bought an ABIT IT7 Max2 Ver2. Should be here Monday. I hope I have no regrets.

All the other system parts where bought weeks ago and I had to send back a SOYO P4X400 Dragon ultra do to several issues and a lack of support from Soyo.

-

 

[*foo]

I'm still recommending i850 systems to my friends. I'm not switching to Granite Bay, unless I really find a need for onboard GbE or SATA.

I think the 845PE is still a good, bang-for-buck solution as well.

I really don't think you can go wrong with any of the Intel platforms, at the moment.

 

[SBeaver]

I think I have read through all the reviews now over and over again and I belive there is good potential in Granite Bay.
However, I think that computer hardware has become more and more of just getting new everything EVERYtime you want to improve something.
I seriously doubt now that the upcoming Intel processors (Preston right?) will work with any Granite Bay board.
One thing is for sure though, they will never be officially supported but even though some motherboard manufacturers have shown that they are our allies and want to give the enthusiasts a hand and bring more life to your machines I still don't think it will work.
Not even Gigabyte with their dual-power thing willl probably not work.
The review of the Gigabyte board said that the dual-power thing was useless although I think it actually might be useful at some point but not enough.
Let us hope that it works but it most likely will not.
But the again in the last few years people don't really change a cpu only they change everything.
It's allmost impossible and even if it is possible to just upgrade one component you usually dont do it anyway because it is cheaper, better in performance increase and simpler to get all new stuff.
That's almost a reason to go with a cheap board instead so you dont have to feel as screwed everytime you upgrade you rig.