Which Motherboard for my new P4

[Stoutale]

Howdy friends. I am building myself a new pc. I am just really confused as to what I should use for parts. My main application is 3d gaming. Morrowind, Doom3, Quake3 etc.

I want to use the Intel 1.8a (northwood) chip, as it seems to offer the most bang for the buck.
I will only use ASUS motherboards.
This will be my first serious attempt at overclocking to high speeds.
I don't mind spending a little extra for RDRAM, if it provides much better performance.

Now the choices I have are:
ASUS P4T533-c = Uses the newest 850 chipset. Enables 533mhz system bus. Uses RDRAM pc800 and pc1066. But is a lot more expensive, has limmitted availability and I don't know how well the P4 1.8A will work in it, since it has 400mhz. I can't afford a 533 P4. And since so few mobo companies are supporting it, does it and rambus really have a future? Will I go further with pc2700 DDR?


ASUS P4B533-E SOCKET478 INTEL845E. This has support for DDR Ram and the new 533mhz. But is it going to work well with the 1.8a that has 400mhz? The other problem is this board is so new that ASUS doesn't even list it on their site.


ASUS P4B266 Intel 845. This is tried and true, but has none of the newer features.

ASUS P4S533 SiS 645DX. Uses the new SIS chipset for 533 support. Will this work good w/o a 533mhz processor? It does support DDR ram and is itself cheap. But I kinda like intel chipsets.


My favorite choice would be the P4T533-c with 512mb Samsung RAMBUS RAM PC800. I figure this will be $100 more and I can probably overclock the ram to pc1066.

What do you guys think?

And thanks!

FYI, other parts for my pc are:

Kingwin Alluminum Case (6fans, seems nicer than lian li's best)
Geforce4 ti 4400 (already have it in current pc)
SB Live! value (already have it in current pc)
Maxtor 60gb quiet 7600rpm IDE HDD
Enermax whisper 430w ps
CoolerMaster IHC-H71
Other Misc parts


__________________
My rig
P3 866mhz stock cooling
ASUS CUSL2 (815) mb
512mb pc133 cas2 crucial ram
Geforce4 ti4400
SoundBlaster Live
win98
IBM 45GXP 7200rpm ata100 HDD (getting bad sectors)
AOPen 32x cd rom

 

[WideMouth40]

The only thing that caught my eye with the P4T533 is that it has a pretty limited range for increasing the FSB. This is from a review at:

http://www.tbreak.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------
ASUS gives you overclocking through the BIOS as well as the onboard dip-switches. Adjusting the switches, you can set the FSB speeds between 100, 103, 105, 110, 133, 136, 138 and 140. The BIOS allows you a little more flexibility with a few added settings between the ones mentioned above as well as a high of 150MHz FSB which in our opinion is on the lower side. For voltage, VCore can be adjusted upto 1.850V but there is no option for adjusting the voltage of memory or AGP.

We were able to take out 100MHz based Northwood CPU from 1.60GHz all the way to 2.4GHz or 150MHz FSB which is the highest that's allowed by the P4T533. We did not have to adjust the VCore up till 148MHz FSB and only raised it to 1.550 to achieve stability at 150MHz FSB. ASUS should have given higher FSB options on the P4T533. Hopefully a BIOS update will allow this in the future
--------------------------------------------------------------

Could definately limit an OC for 1.6 and 1.8 woodies.

Peace

 

[MospeadasDark]

It is assuming of course you don't run RDRAM. 533/533 will rock any of DDR offerings. Even if you could overclock the proc more it wouldn't make a difference as you are still limited in memory bandwidth on DDR boards. An A-sync bus also take a latency hit.

This is also assuming that PC1066 is out so that you could run 533/533 rather than using an overclocked PC800.

 

[Stoutale]

Thank you for your replies guys. Glad I found this forum and website , it is really helping me choose my parts.

I think I am going to go with this motherboard. I am going through my company's vendor and my rep/friend thier is holding my order until the 1066s rdrams come in.

Now I am just worried that a 1.8a will be too slow considering how much I am spending for the rest of my system.

How much better will the 533mhz intel chips run on this board than the 400mhz chips? I am assuming the 1.8a will overclock just fine and with all my cooling (getting Volcano 7+) will be just as fast as say... the new p4 2.4b (533) that's $600 running at stock speed.

If not, should I wait till the lower end P4 2.2B (533) reaches my price range of $300? About how long will that take? Also, are there any differences between As and Bs, or are the Bs just rated better? I am assuming the 533speed is just a mobo ram thing and the B setting just means these chips are really nice northwoods that can handle the speed.

SOrry to be so long winded here. And thanks again for the help!

 

[WideMouth40]

Great question, I'm going through them myself. As for pricing there is going to be a large price cut on May 26th. Take a look at what's expected at:

http://freespace.virgin.net/m.warner/CPUPricesIntel.htm

While I haven't seen any of the 2.26/533's actually available, the pricing in bulk purchases will be $241 us on the 26th. Not too far away.

Since you are going with RDRAM, the answer to your question about if you can OC your 1.8a to 2.53 levels or above, will they perform on par. Yes, they should. Whether you can get that level of OC or not is the real question.

Did you get any indication when the PC-1066 RDDRAM will be available? I'm waiting on that to hit the market before I purchase anything else for building my system. I'll be starting with the 1.6a myself, using pc-1066 when it's out, then just upgrading the CPU as they become more affordable. Another great article I just saw on PC-1066 RDRAM is at:

http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/printreview.asp?review=p424b&mscssid=&tp=

Pretty interesting stuff. Good luck!

Peace

 

[Stoutale]

Wow, holding off for May 26th for the P4 2.26b seems lby far the way to go. for just $60 more I will be getting a MUCH better chip than if I buy today.

I did some searches around the net to find a store selling the 2.26b and came up with nothing. Hopefully it is a real chip and will be available on the 26th.

My vendor is a clueless as me as to when the 1066s will come in. He thinks it might be soon, but is not sure.

BTW, how reliable is that price cut rumor? I haven't heard anything about it myself.

 

[WideMouth40]

Actually it's more than a rumour, it's Intels roadmap for pricing and releases. They have a pretty good record of sticking to it. Remember those prices are for bulk purchases, your price will be higher, but not hugely, and it will take a little to trickle down.

I'm betting you'll be all set by the time your RDRAM is ready

Peace

 

[WideMouth40]

One other thing to think about regarding the ASUS P4T533 is that everything I'm reading says its top FSB speed is 150. That really does severely limit your OC potential to the following, assuming the limiting factor will be your CPU and not other factors such as memory:

1.6A - 2.4 Ghz
1.8A - 2.7 Ghz
2.0A - 3.0 Ghz
2.2A - 3.96 Ghz
2.4A - 3.6 Ghz

2.26B - 2.64 Ghz
2.4B - 2.80 Ghz
2.53B - 2.96 Ghz

I might be off on the speeds because I'm not including the chip mulitplier in the math. Anyone know?

On the good side you should be able to run the RDRAM @ x4 instead of x3.

I think I'm doing the math correctly and posted a question about it in the Asus MB section. From the numbers, it really looks like the P4T533 is only a good choice for the 2.0A, 2.2A, and 2.4A crowd, and will severely hurt OC potential for anything else. Looks like a kinda poor choice if you might want to upgrade your chip down the road but keep your motherboard.

Then again, I could be totally wrong, lol.

Peace

 

[Cooler666]

at the moment: TH7II-RAID is by far the best option

but if you want to use 1066 RDRAM then i suggest you wait, the new Asus motherboard as shown has limited overclockability although its only just been released so its hard to say.

 

[WideMouth40]

at the moment: TH7II-RAID is by far the best option

but if you want to use 1066 RDRAM then i suggest you wait, the new Asus motherboard as shown has limited overclockability although its only just been released so its hard to say.

I have to agree that the THII-Raid is a better board from everything I am reading. The only thing thats bugging me out about it is the ICS chips used to clock the RDRAM being rated pretty closely to the 400 spec. Maybe newer version of the board have faster ones, dunno though.

Peace

 

[Placid]

The only thing that caught my eye with the P4T533 is that it has a pretty limited range for increasing the FSB. This is from a review at:

http://www.tbreak.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------
ASUS gives you overclocking through the BIOS as well as the onboard dip-switches. Adjusting the switches, you can set the FSB speeds between 100, 103, 105, 110, 133, 136, 138 and 140. The BIOS allows you a little more flexibility with a few added settings between the ones mentioned above as well as a high of 150MHz FSB which in our opinion is on the lower side. For voltage, VCore can be adjusted upto 1.850V but there is no option for adjusting the voltage of memory or AGP.

We were able to take out 100MHz based Northwood CPU from 1.60GHz all the way to 2.4GHz or 150MHz FSB which is the highest that's allowed by the P4T533. We did not have to adjust the VCore up till 148MHz FSB and only raised it to 1.550 to achieve stability at 150MHz FSB. ASUS should have given higher FSB options on the P4T533. Hopefully a BIOS update will allow this in the future
--------------------------------------------------------------

Could definately limit an OC for 1.6 and 1.8 woodies.

Peace

Yes I was looking at the spec's for the drcg's (Direct Rambus Clock Generators) on a I850e board using the icst drcg and it is rated to 156mhz.
You can read the pdf spec's here http://www.icst.com/products/pdf/9250-37.pdf

I wonder if there is a correlation with asus choosing a 150mhz max fsb and the drcg's limit?

Not only could this put a damper on overclocking a 1.6a and using x4 memory but also the 533 series will require a high fsb, to get a 2.4b to 3ghz will require a 166mhz fsb.

 

[WideMouth40]

Good catch on the drcg's. I never thought of the correlation between the drcg's and the MB's FSB limits. Makes sense...and really hurts the boards chance of being an OCer's dream board.

I can't believe no one is using the higher rated TI drcg. this blows.

Peace

 

[DoctorDave]

1066 ram

I am ready to order this asus board P4533, but i won't order it without the 1066 memory that is recommended by asus. anyone know where I can buy it?

Thanks
Dave

 

[DMI+RY]

ASUS P4S533 SiS 645DX. Uses the new SIS chipset for 533 support. Will this work good w/o a 533mhz processor? It does support DDR ram and is itself cheap. But I kinda like intel chipsets.

So far after out of the box testing P4S533 with 1.8A / Stock Fan and XMS3000 Corsair stick get me started into 2.4GHz 133MHz bus with no problems.
Again to get 2.4GHz I did not do any tuning AT ALL.

There are a lot of very good reviews for P4S533.

 

[DoctorDave]

got my Asus P4T533-c comming

I got mine comming later this week with the 2.0 NW and a Q-power case. I will let you know how it works out. I started a new thread for some help.

Dave

 

[Stoutale]

I placed my order as well.
P4T533-C
1.6a
2X256mb pc800 RDRAM
Kingwin KT-436 Aluminum case -black
Maxtor quiet drive 80gb 7200rpm
Enermax whisper ps 430w
Cooler Master rounded cables
Lite-on 16x DVD-black
Sony floppy-Black
Lian Li 4T temperature LCD w/ 2probes/displays and black aluminum bezel
Artic Silver 3
WinXP Home (my first legit OS!!)
Geforce4 ti4400 and SbLive Value from my old PC

 

[DoctorDave]

mem

What brand of mem did you get? I got some samsung 40 nanosecond rated.
PC 800 - hoping it will do 1066 no problem, that way i can get my bus to at least 133 and maybe a tiny bit higher. The Q-power water block will help after that i am sure.

Dave

 

[Stoutale]

Samsung brand Ram. Not sure what the nanosecond rating on it is tho...