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| Thinking of getting a Pentium 4? Wait no longer. Or maybe wait till November 2002. - Morte (4/07/2002 9:39:28 AM) |
04/07/2002
I was writing some recommendations for a friend who wanted to know the best motherboard for a Pentium 4 at the moment, so I decided to share with the rest of you.
THE best board to get for a Pentium 4 (at present and for the forseeable future) is the Giga-byte GA-8IHXP, but there aren't any in Queensland (or Australia) by the look of things.
The second best is the ASUS P4T533-C, and it just so happens that COMPUTER ALLIANCE sell them. Lucky lucky you.
The 850E chipset runs the mem/cpu FSB at 533Mhz (as opposed to 400). HOLY FUDGE, I hear you say. Using PC1066 RDRAM with a bandwidth of 4.2Gb/sec, this is likely to outperform the beejeesus out of any DDR-SDRAM (which currently is likely to only hit 2.7Gb/sec with the current DDR-RAM architecture). The ASUS board only has six USB ports, four v1.1, and two v2.0. The six channel sound built in just means it supports Dolby 5.1 (with SPDIF in/out ports). This is optional, so if you want it, ask for it.
Anyway, blah, blah, blah, this is the board to get. So get it. Apparently, since Intel aren't continuing future development for RDRAM, this is likely to be the last chipset from them supporting RDRAM, which means that nothing will have this much memory bandwidth until a completely new memory architecture is placed on motherboards. God only knows when that might happen, but it won't be in the next year.
The info is all Toms and Tweakers too
It appears to be difficult to get PC1066 at present in Qld. It also appears that while this is the most powerful, it still costs a bundle. So if you are a 'pewr piece of crap', you will probably have to live with the DDR333 running at 2700 instead. There are far too many boards out there doing that, so I won't bother comparing them here.
In other news, Soltek decided 533 wasn't enough for them, they o'c-ed an SL-85MIR board to 800Mhz CPU&Memory FSB (200 actual), with a lock on AGP of 66, and PCI of 33, so that peripherals still actually run 'stably'. Note well, this is for overclocker freaks who like to live dangerously, and/or with VapoChill.
I disavow personal financial relationships with the aforementioned brand, store, and website names. I also emphasise that this recommendation and knowledge could not have been imparted to you without having mentioned them. This was just an expression of my educated opinion.
I don't want to enter into arguments re bandwidth vs latency. For pissy little apps that do small bits of shit, sure, latency is the all-important thing. But if you are doing video editing and other processor intensive tasks that take longer than a few extra nanoseconds, bandwidth is king.
Why wait till November 2002? Oh, that's just when the next hot shit P4 chipset comes out. You'll have to wait and see whether it is any good tho. I have no idea at present. I just wish AMD put thermal resistors into the CPU, (ones that worked), and I can forget this Intel crap.
05/07/2002
OK, let's get a DDR board instead. This is (to tell the truth), a really crap time to buy a Pentium 4, since we are halfway between the old chipsets, and the new ones due out in October/November, and even better ones in 2003. But you pushed and pushed, and this is what you get.
The best chipset for this at present is not officially endorsed by Intel, and is subject to patent licensing lawsuits between Intel and VIA. However, since the alternative is an Intel chipset (845G) that has a few limitations (not all mobos support PC-2700 on it, eg. ASUS P4B533-V), and which forces you to have a video controller you don't want, it might still be a safe bet to go with the VIA P4X333 chipset.
Let's look, for example, at the cost of a P4X333 mobo, 512Mb DDR333 PC-2700 RAM, with a 2.2Ghz P4b (CPU and RAM running at 4x133Mhz FSB):
From Altech in Brisbane, we have:
$270 512MB PC-2700 (333MHz) DDRAM `Corsair VALUE SELECT` (USA), 32Mx64, CAS 2., Lifetime warranty
$225 Soltek SL-85ERV (VIA P4X400+8235) M/B, 533MHz FSB, DDRAM, ATA100/133, On-board 6-Ch, USB 2.0, Audio, ATX
$866 Intel Pentium 4, 2.4GHz (478-pin), 533 MHz Bus
or if you are a cheap bastard,
$530 Intel Pentium 4, 2.2GHz (478-pin), 533 MHz Bus
If you can't add that up, it is $1025 for 2.2Ghz, or $1361 for 2.4Ghz.
So there you go.
Here's the link to the specs for the mobo in Altech, and the chipset review:
Soltek
Toms Hardware
6/7/2002
Oh Crikey - now we hear that the 845G chipset DOESN'T support PC-2700 DDR333 RAM. Tom's Hardware basically says it DOES, and the vendors basically say it DOESN'T. The truth appears to be that somewhere in the depths of Intel's chipset spec, it DOES allow for PC2700 DDR333, and that in theory, it would just require a jumper/bios change to accomodate it. Unfortunately, it also appears to be the case that most (if not all) mobo vendors are hedging on the side of caution, and only stating support for PC2100 DDR266 at most. But the test runs for DDR333 were done using Giga-byte's GA-8IGX board, and on Giga-byte's website, the board spec is only up to PC2100 DDR266. So that means there must be a bios/jumper setting to enable it.
From what I can see on Tomshardware, the chipset 845G runs its actual main bus speed up to 166, which only needs a multiplier of 2 to support the memory clock of 333 and 3.2 for the CPU clock of 533, whereas the normal bus speed of 133 is multiplied by 2.5 to hit 333, and 4 to achieve 533. But then, having said that, the 845E also has this main bus speed up to 166. It is all very confusing.
sources for the argument include:
Toms 1
Toms 2
Toms 3
Anandtech
SharkeyExtreme
VR-Zone
GigaByte
ASUS
INTEL
The only other contender (which supports DDR333) appears to be the SiS645DX chipset, HOWEVER, it came out in March, and has no support for USB v2.0, and there is no way a sane person would get a NEW motherboard without it. Besides which, several chipsets (notably Intel) are starting to include hardware support for Gigabit Ethernet, and the USB2.0 hardware is a key component of this. |
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Forget that Intell shit NOW, do what I do...
Buy AMD take off your case and point a small desk fan at your cpu :). One day I hope they sort out a good thermal system but till then I'll stay true to AMD and my MARTEC (Desk Fan).
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Ha! I know, you don't need to convince me of the superiority of AMD. However, you WOULD have to convince the aforementioned friend that he has to keep his case open and point a deskfan at it, when he likes to keep things simple. He isn't a freakazoid like us, who prefer performance over presentation. Anyway, I'm going to update the original article and add some more info about DDR based chipset boards.
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I spoke to fucking soon as per the fekken norm!
Went to visit my old man over the weekend and wouldn’t you know it, someone turned my pc on w/o the desk fan… well needless to say my XP 1600 burnt up like a marshmallow over coals and I’m stuck using an old Duron 800 till I can get a warranty return from JLC. From now on I’m gunna lock my door and booby-trap my PC. No mofekker gunna touch my shit now!
Btw the AMD approved ($40) fans are just as shitty as the 2bit dime a dozen ones that can eat 4 or 5 CPU’s before breakfast!
In closing: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKEDY FUCK FUCK
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