Topic: The Dark Side? Pentium 4 motherboards...

[Dogmatix!]

So...lets say someone I know...a friend of mine, if you will, is considering buying/putting together an Intel-based desktop system for the first time in his life.  Who has the best Intel P4 motherboard out right now and which one is it?


Thanks in advance...

[Matsukasi]

Been considering the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe for a week now. I'm hardly an expert in this area though, so I defer to ( hopefully ) someone with more extensive experience in building machines.

[Dogmatix!]

That's the exactl mobo I've seen come up as a top one.  I read somewhere that you can get the P4P800 for cheaper and use a BIOS hack to get the features of the P4C800...


 

[TB613]

If you are not looking to overclock the Intel 875PBZ is probably the best and most stable out there, if you are going to the dark side don't go halfway.    

[Dogmatix!]

Err...my friend will likely want to overclock but rarely gets extreme about it.

[TB613]

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Err...my friend will likely want to overclock but rarely gets extreme about it.  

Actually Intel does allow a small amount of overclocking called "burn-in". It is limited though with 4% for the CPU / FSB and 4% for the RAM.  

[digi]

The PC-Pro A list Intel Mobo has the MSI 875p Neo as its best board.  You may have to register with the site to read the review but I'll post it here as well:  (hope it helps )

 http://www.pcpro.co.uk

 

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The highest-performance motherboard for a Pentium 4-based system, thanks to dual-channel PC3200 DDR memory - and it's packed with features too.

Another month rolls by and Intel has released yet another core logic chipset for its Pentium 4 family of CPUs. However, unlike certain recent chipsets (such as the 845PE), the 875P does actually introduce some genuinely new and appealing features.

Foremost among these is the added support for 800MHz FSB (front side bus) Pentium 4 processors, although because the supply of these processors is currently limited the 875P also supports the more widely available 533MHz FSB CPUs. Upping the FSB from 533MHz to 800MHz will certainly give a significant performance boost to the Pentium 4 architecture, but the 875P also includes several other new features to boost performance.

For the memory subsystem, there's now support for dual-channel PC3200 (400MHz) DDR SDRAM - the first time such fast memory has been supported by an Intel chipset. This potentially ups the memory bandwidth available to the system to a staggering 6.4GB/sec - compare that with a mere 2.1GB/sec on an 845E motherboard, 2.7GB/sec on an 845PE board, or 4.3GB/sec on an E7205 board. The only limitation is that to reach such high figures you have to use a pair of identical memory modules, although the board will also work in single-channel mode (3.2GB/sec) with just a single DIMM.

Also new in the 875P is the ICH5 south bridge. This adds support for a further two USB 2 ports (bringing the total to eight) and two SATA connectors, alongside a standard dual-channel EIDE controller. What's more, there's now a direct connection between the NIC and the south bridge, which should help to boost network performance.

In customary fashion, MSI has added some special features of its own to complement the 875P core logic chipset. Foremost are three FireWire ports (two powered, one unpowered) on a blanking plate. In addition to the EIDE and SATA controllers in the south bridge, MSI includes a Promise 20378 RAID controller. This can support a further two EIDE and two SATA drives, bringing the grand total of supported drives up to eight. You can even build a RAID-0+1 array by mirroring the two EIDE hard disks on two Serial ATA disks for maximum performance and integrity.

MSI's trademark DLED error-code display system is also present. This comprises four LEDs mounted on a blanking plate that go through a series of coloured codes as the PC boots up. If there's a problem, all you have to do is look up the code in the manual to find out what it is, which makes error detection and correction a less time-consuming process.

Component layout is generally pretty good on the 875P Neo, with the AGP 8x slot and DIMM sockets nicely separated, while the EIDE and FDD sockets are spaced slightly apart. My only real concern is that there's just one spare three-pin fan power socket once the CPU and north bridge fans have been connected. This means that for a well-stacked system you'll need to buy extra chassis fans that can be powered directly from the PSU rather than the motherboard.

In terms of performance, the MSI 875P Neo didn't disappoint, earning a score of 1.70 in our 2D real-world benchmarks. This compares favourably with earlier 845PE- and E7205-powered motherboards, although it failed to surpass the Evesham Evolution 3CR system reviewed last month (see issue 104, p54), which scored a heady 1.80. 3D games also benefit from the increased bandwidth of dual-channel DDR memory, as demonstrated by the score of 15,235 in 3DMark2001 SE.

These benchmark scores were recorded using a 3GHz Pentium 4, 512MB of PC3200 DDR SDRAM (split over two DIMMs), a 120GB Seagate Barracuda V Serial ATA hard disk and a Crucial Radeon 9700 Pro graphics card. The biggest difference between this setup and the Evesham's was that the latter included a Radeon 9800 Pro graphics card, helping it to 17,110 3DMarks.

It's hard to calculate the 875P Neo's value for money, because several factors must be taken into account. First, there's the premium that always has to be paid for new technology; second, to use the board to its full potential with dual-channel DDR memory, you'll have to buy your RAM modules in identical pairs. However, the motherboard does include almost every feature you'll ever need, as there are both EIDE and SATA controllers, a RAID controller, 5.1 channel sound with S/PDIF output, eight USB 2 ports, three FireWire ports and a Gigabit NIC all integrated as standard.

As such, the street price of £129 isn't as high as it first sounds. Plus, using dual-channel PC3200 DDR will finally allow you to build a turbo-charged Pentium 4 system without having to resort to incredibly expensive and hard-to-find PC1066 RDRAM on an Intel 850E chipset motherboard.

The conclusion is clear: this is currently the most advanced and highest-performing Pentium 4 motherboard around and, as such, should be at the top of any power user's shopping list.

 

[ActiveX]

Intel is still in business?

[E_Look]

All the off the shelf comp companies, you know, HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc., are primarily selling Intel boxes.  Oh, they may throw in one AMD system here or there, and usually it's the top of the line AMD chip, and right now, that's the Athlon 64 series of CPUs.

Before building my own, I first really wanted just to do it in "one step"- get one of these prefab systems.  But, lack of drive bays and AMD based systems made me look away from the prebuilt computers.

I guess we all know Intel still has the deeper pockets and are probably more able to churn out more chips per boule or something like that than AMD.  Still, I went with AMD and hope they continue to successfully duke it out with one of the "Dark Halves".  

[E_Look]

Dogmatix, even for my little kids, I'm most likely to slap together AMD systems for them!  They do seem these days to offer more bang for the buck.

[ActiveX]

Quote:
All the off the shelf comp companies, you know, HP/Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc., are primarily selling Intel boxes.  Oh, they may throw in one AMD system here or there, and usually it's the top of the line AMD chip, and right now, that's the Athlon 64 series of CPUs.

Before building my own, I first really wanted just to do it in "one step"- get one of these prefab systems.  But, lack of drive bays and AMD based systems made me look away from the prebuilt computers.

I guess we all know Intel still has the deeper pockets and are probably more able to churn out more chips per boule or something like that than AMD.  Still, I went with AMD and hope they continue to successfully duke it out with one of the "Dark Halves".    

Well like IBM, Intel won't last if caught offguard too many times...

I read recently that AMD based servers have been on the rise in the business world...

Intel should fear that market share shrinking, because that is their strength...well that and home consumer ignorance...

[Dogmatix!]

I've ALWAYS been an AMD supporter.  I think the first CPU of their I used was a 80286...


I'm just getting a little curious about the current crop of P4s and was giving some consideration to building an Intel box.  I was thinking about a P4 3.2 gHz machine...



The box I'm using now is an Athlon 2700+ that I built a year ago last month.



I've always just stayed away from Intel because I wanted to support the underdog.  I'll continue to do that, of course, but I do think that right now, the P4 3.2 chip is a pretty good buy...


 

[Javora]

Quote:
Been considering the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe for a week now. I'm hardly an expert in this area though, so I defer to ( hopefully ) someone with more extensive experience in building machines.  

I have the P4C800-E Deluxe and while mine has been stable I cannot recommend this board.  It has been plagued with voltage problems from the start.  Remember people the "-E Deluxe" was a revision from the first P4C800 because of problems with the 10/100/1000 network connection.  They have since done another revision of that motherboard and Bios that seems to have taken care of some of the problems.  IMHO the P4C800-E Deluxe is too problematic for first time builders, I would suggest the MSI board that digi suggested.  The only way I would suggest the Asus motherboard is if you plan on using a Raid system or a lot of S-ATA disk drives.  If you do plan on going with the Asus motherboard you might want to check out the  Working thread to help avoid some of the components that doesn't seem to work well with this motherboard.  Hope this helps.
 

[Matsukasi]

Quote:

Quote:
Been considering the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe for a week now. I'm hardly an expert in this area though, so I defer to ( hopefully ) someone with more extensive experience in building machines.  

I have the P4C800-E Deluxe and while mine has been stable I cannot recommend this board.  It has been plagued with voltage problems from the start.  Remember people the "-E Deluxe" was a revision from the first P4C800 because of problems with the 10/100/1000 network connection.  They have since done another revision of that motherboard and Bios that seems to have taken care of some of the problems.  IMHO the P4C800-E Deluxe is too problematic for first time builders, I would suggest the MSI board that digi suggested.  The only way I would suggest the Asus motherboard is if you plan on using a Raid system or a lot of S-ATA disk drives.  If you do plan on going with the Asus motherboard you might want to check out the  Working thread to help avoid some of the components that doesn't seem to work well with this motherboard.  Hope this helps.
   

Awesome, Jav! TYVM for the input.

[Javora]

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Awesome, Jav! TYVM for the input.

No problem at all, if you (or anyone else for that matter) have any questions.  Feel free to send me a PM.  If I don't know the answer I'll at least try to point you in the right direction.

[Dogmatix!]

Quote:

Quote:

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Been considering the Asus P4C800-E Deluxe for a week now. I'm hardly an expert in this area though, so I defer to ( hopefully ) someone with more extensive experience in building machines.  

I have the P4C800-E Deluxe and while mine has been stable I cannot recommend this board.  It has been plagued with voltage problems from the start.  Remember people the "-E Deluxe" was a revision from the first P4C800 because of problems with the 10/100/1000 network connection.  They have since done another revision of that motherboard and Bios that seems to have taken care of some of the problems.  IMHO the P4C800-E Deluxe is too problematic for first time builders, I would suggest the MSI board that digi suggested.  The only way I would suggest the Asus motherboard is if you plan on using a Raid system or a lot of S-ATA disk drives.  If you do plan on going with the Asus motherboard you might want to check out the  Working thread to help avoid some of the components that doesn't seem to work well with this motherboard.  Hope this helps.
   

Awesome, Jav! TYVM for the input.  

Yes...thanks, Javaora.  I probably should have suspected that would be the case with the Asus board.  They have had some problems with their Athon mobo's lately, too.  I'm thinking their quality has gone downhill in the past 18 months or so...


MSI has never been a company I've given much consideration to, but that was a pretty good review of it that was posted earlier.  It certainly didn't turn me off...heheh.


I'm just so sick of building my own systems, but I don't wanna pay Alienware prices for the components I want and I don't want some slapped-together Dell, Gateway or Compaq that loaded down with bloatware.  The cheapest way for me to go to get what I want has been to build my own and I've been doing that for almost 20 years.  It just gets old...heheh...


 

[JMM]

I'm glad you started this post Dog, as I might order a P4 motherboard for Vicky's P/C since I hate this Dell P3 with a passion. I'll be asking for advice on that later.  

[E_Look]

You don't think the prices on the Athlon 64 chips (64 bit processing potential!... if someone comes up with a 64 bit OS or serious apps that use it) are more than competitive with even the fastest P4s??  Really, a few GHz or MHz difference in a CPU won't affect system performance noticeably at all, unless you are benchmarking.  Even with the Athlon 64s, I went with the 3000+, which runs at 2.0 GHz, because the 3200+ (never mind the 3400+) the former was substantially cheaper than the latter two and even the benchmarks, at least as I read on some sites like Tom's Hardware or anandtech, are almost the same between the 3000+ and the 3200+ chips.

Despite my agreement with you gentlemen that the underdog here actually deserves support, I'd buy Intel chips if they were worth what they are charging for them.  But in practice, they are not.  AMD's chips, by comparison, are.



Dogmatix-
I have one of the latest MSI boards, the K8T-Neo FIS2R for the Athlon 64 chip.  At least for the AMD CPUs, the MSI board (so far, thank God) is working fine, it's SATA ready, and was really no problem to set up.

[Javora]

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Yes...thanks, Javaora.  I probably should have suspected that would be the case with the Asus board.  They have had some problems with their Athon mobo's lately, too.  I'm thinking their quality has gone downhill in the past 18 months or so...

It's funny you mention that, there was an article talking about Asus quality issue a few months ago.  I'm searching for it as I tap, if I find it I'll post.  It's a very good read and sheds some light on why Asus products have been going down hill over the last couple of years.


Edit:

I can't get the full article, as I cannot log into the source article.  The following is what I was told is an excerpt.  Sorry it's the best I can do.  Hope you enjoy what little of the read that I can give you.


Source: http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/A...es=A2&seq=4:

Quote:

Wayne Hsieh, one of Asus his founders and with almost 6% of the shares the largest shareholder, resigned last Friday, and left an emotional email to former colleagues yesterday to explain the reasons why he left.
Wayne Hsieh, one of Asustek Computer?s founders and the largest shareholder, resigned from the board and left his post as vice president of the manufacturing division last Friday and wrote an emotional email to former colleagues yesterday explaining his reasons to leave.

In the email, Hsieh criticized Asustek?s management style, saying the company?s leader does not use people based on their abilities but on their relationships to the leader. He said that Asustek?s lack of standardized management processes has caused bureaucracy and corruption and that he could no longer work there.

Prior to his resignation, Hsieh worked at Asustek?s Suzhou plant, located in Jiangsu Province, China. Sources said Hsieh was caught off guard when he was notified that he was being replaced by Louis Hsiao, a classmate of Asustek?s president Jonney Shih.

Asustek was founded in 1989 by Wayne Hsieh, Ted Hsu (now the chairman of ASRock), M.T. Liao and T.H. Tung.

 

[Javora]

Quote:
I'm glad you started this post Dog, as I might order a P4 motherboard for Vicky's P/C since I hate this Dell P3 with a passion. I'll be asking for advice on that later.  

As long as I'm searching out information.  JMM since you are using a Dell, you are going to need more than a new motherboard unless you are going to buy that motherboard from Dell.  Non-Dell OEM motherboards will not work in Dell cases as the leads from the Dell case and power supply is not standard.  I would suggest this  Antec case.  It has a removable motherboard tray and is easy to work with.  Just be careful with the door cover, as it can't take much abuse.  This is the case I wish I had gotten for myself, as the Antec case I have now is pretty load.  The case I suggested is much quieter.  Hope this helps.