Mobo advice

[Thant]

Im planing on building a new system in the next couple of weeks and been having hard time deciding which mobo to use, Im thinking of either Abit IS7 or Asus P4P800 Deluxe.
I plan on using a P4 2.8C processor.
2x512mb DDR400 (probably kingston,corsair or crucial)
Radeon 9800pro 128mb
2x80gb Sata hdd (gonna go for raid 0 config most likely)
Oh and will get a PSU over 400W (not sure what yet)

Not planing on OC'in at first, might do that later on if I feel I need the extra power.

Any advice/suggestions are more than welcomed

Just another poster..

 

[blah]

Save yeself a little head banging and get an Epox board, you can get 875P for almost the same price as P4P, yet it will be much more many trouble free.

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[etp777]

My P4P800 Deluxe has been rock solid from day one, whether overclocking, tweaking for noise(Down to one case fan, turned down on fan controller tohelp minimize noise). NO matter whatI've done, has been dead on. same 2.8c, same Video card, same pair of Corsair 512MB ddr400s. Only differences in my system are that I only have a 350(will upgrade that sometime when I'm not feeling so lazy 😉 ) and my raid array is a pair of 40gig ata100s, because I already had a matched set from old array.

 

[blah]

Well, Asus haz wireless edition of that thing, probably worth a couple extra bux.

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Snaggle]

<A HREF="http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/408055730180e7ae273fc0a80102067a/Product/View/990879#abitis7" target="_new">http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/408055730180e7ae273fc0a80102067a/Product/View/990879#abitis7</A>

<A HREF="http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/408056700191420a273fc0a801020612/Product/View/990880#asusp4p800" target="_new">http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/408056700191420a273fc0a801020612/Product/View/990880#asusp4p800</A>

Since you listed three brands which don't go well together lets start there.In choosing ram one can opt for high latency plug and play ram(that's what crucial is and the value versions of mushkin and corsair);low latency ram for very aggressive timings and great performance at stock speeds or for very fast ram to overclock your FSB to a higher level with...you've got to decide what you want to do .If you're overclocking it's harder to do with dual channel ram and the larger the size of the sticks the harder it is to do too,so I think you're really going for either the jeep or the rolls and not the 10 second car.The advantage of that gig of ram over a half gig is that your hard drives page file will never(hopefully) take the place of your ram,the disadvantage is that its hard to soup up that gig.Crucial does not really give one a lot of suppot at their web page nor if you email them with specific questions,so you should use either the equally good mushkin or almost as good kingston.

Likewise don't be seduced by all the 9800 hype,almost all games can still be played well on the much cheaper radeon 9600 pro selling for half the price of the 9800.The geforce cards are inferior to the radeons;but have much better drivers=they're more plug and play cards,rather like crucial ram.This makes no difference to hardware enthusiasts;but might make a big difference to you.

The same goes for power supply units😱ne only needs 400w+ if one has an overloaded rig(tons of hard drives,extra fans and optical drives);one needs the extra juice to overclock with or one is buying for upgrade head room-360w is all you need for that rig.Fortron source is the preferred PSU here,both for quality and price;but check out silverstone,enermax,vantec and antec too.

 

[etp777]

GOt the wifi adapter on mine too. Love it, got rid of a 40ft cable running lenght of my apartment. Now just have that, and then use onboard gigabit with a 4ft crossover to my linux box.

 

[blah]

Hey, you, can you please keep yer linkz in a shorter matter, it is kind of stupid drug dat stupid bar at the buttem of da screen to see the end of it. Read da FAX to find out howe.

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Crashman]

blah lied, get the IS7. Lots of forum members have them, and few have had any problems. The only problem I've noticed is that some can't get them stable over 250MHz ("1GHz") FSB, but you don't even need to worry about going beyond that with your 2.8C anyway. 250MHz FSB would get your 2.8C to 3.5GHz if you can keep the CPU cool enough.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blah]

what did I lie about?.. extra noise from NB FAN?.. Sound not working right?.. not eccepting some memory types?.. BIOS doing reset?.. or what???.. and there is <A HREF="http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=29&threadid=1292433" target="_new">more</A> than I described...

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Snaggle]

I made a mistake,I meant to write that corsair does not give you a lot of support,not crucial;but they're virtually the same people(why I made the mistake :frown: ).

 

[Crashman]

When you said the Epox board would be much more trouble free than the IS7, which is impossible because of the word "much", in that the IS7 is very close to being trouble free.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blah]

ok, not much - more ;>

..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Crashman]

Sorry I was a bit harsh, I was just being lazy and quick in the original reply. I knew you didn't mean to trick anyone, just that your statement didn't jive 100%. It is possible that Epox's board could be a "little" less problematic than the IS7, but I'd have to find fault in the IS7 first, other than the 250MHz FSB stability limit that many boards have, which I don't consider to be a problem for most overclockers.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blah]

I do not get upset at postings, or words, it is a game for me (even though it is helpful sometimes) so no apologies. The thing is that I am not Abit's fan no more, was for 2+ years, KT133A is still running strong here, but they failed me with Athlon XP boards and P4 board (based on your IS7 recommendations I got AI7 as a newer/better thing), and it was a 6 hours of frustration with sound, HD and memory crapp outings.

EPoX on the other had ZERO problems for me with XP boards and recent P4 (not considering that they are cheaper than even Abit). Everything works out of the box, 8RDA even took MX300 sound with love and pleasure. So that's why I am kind of biased with epox boards now, and not just that, they have no active cooling, which I really appreciate, no extra noise at night (like now😉

Don't get me wrong, I am not against Abit or Asus or whareva, they are good stuff, but there is always something better, and based on my own experience I am recommending what I think is best right at this point. You may have a completely different view, and that's ok, I don't mind, but keep it to yourself when I am talking here, ok ;?>


..this is very useful and helpful place for information...

 

[Crashman]

I can understand that. I've not been buying Soyo boards because of some warranty issues I've had with that company. But if you said a Soyo board was great and I'd seen information that shows it, I'd let it slide.

Occasionally I mention my issues with Soyo, but usually only when someone has a really tough decision between two boards and I'm trying to find a reason to break the tie.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>