What Asus Motherboard?

[pauliescouse]

Hi guys,

I am planning to do a major upheaval with regards to mobo and chip at Christmas and was wondering could you please give me some advice.

I think I know what chip I want (P4 2.53 N'wood) but I am kinda stuck as to the mobo.

I am stuck as to whether to get a P4S8X (with the SiS648 c'set) (as I want a 9700 AIW PRO as well so may as well get a mobo cabaple of supportting it) or a P4533 (as it has the I850E chipset - more memory bandwidth but only 4X AGP :-/ ) or the new P4G8X (which has an Intel E7205 chipset and 8x AGP!) - which looks very impressive though I cannot find ANYWHERE that sells it yet!

What would you guys recommend?

[Neo]

Get a Asus A7N8x nforce2 board, Two sticks of Drr400(PC3200) so you can use daul channel ddr, and an athlon xp 2400+ to 2800+. You will be able to run the 9700 in it. Sorry I am an AMD guy. That board comes with Serial ata, firewire, usb 2, Onboard nvidia Audio Processor with DD 5.1 spec.

[mackerel]

pauliescouse,

Welcome to the board :wave:

From your list it looks like your going high end :) I'm more an Abit person than Asus so can't comment on your specific boards.

AGP 8x probably wont make much difference over 4x in the forseeable future, so don't write off a mobo just because it doesn't have 8x support.

The E7205 chipset stuff sounds good, but as it's new when you do find it, it will probably cost lot.

Ok, that probably wasn't a lot of help but do let us know what you get and how it goes.

[Fallguy]

Originally posted by pauliescouse
Hi guys,

I am planning to do a major upheaval with regards to mobo and chip at Christmas and was wondering could you please give me some advice.

I think I know what chip I want (P4 2.53 N'wood) but I am kinda stuck as to the mobo.

I am stuck as to whether to get a P4S8X (with the SiS648 c'set) (as I want a 9700 AIW PRO as well so may as well get a mobo cabaple of supportting it) or a P4533 (as it has the I850E chipset - more memory bandwidth but only 4X AGP :-/ ) or the new P4G8X (which has an Intel E7205 chipset and 8x AGP!) - which looks very impressive though I cannot find ANYWHERE that sells it yet!

What would you guys recommend?

Um,
I think the E7205 is a Workstation/Server chipset, so it will be pretty darn hard to find in any retail outlets. And very expensive if you can find it...

Personally, if you are dead set on going with Intel, I would buy the i850E based motherboard - unless you are going to fork out for a E7205 board, the 850E with RDRAM is the fastest thing around. As AGP 8X, its a marketting gimmick, not a genuine improvement. The actual sustained bandwidth through AGP 8X is not really any greater than 4x, only the peak (and highly theoretical) bandwidth has doubled. Pairing an i850 with a 9700, you aren't going to be hammmering the AGP bus anyway, the 9700 has so much on-board RAM.

Fallguy

[pauliescouse]

Hi guys, Thanks for the welcome!

I only found out about the new Asus mobo with this chipset on the other day - here's the link:

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

I thought that with an Intel chipset (certainly with the i850) Id get more "memory bandwidth" and as such greater speed; THe only thing I had against that i850 is its use of Rambus (expensive) and the lack opf an AGP8X slot - though after Fallguys explanation I dont think thats an issue - the asus board on the link above used DDR and the P4S8X used DDR as well (as this used the SiS chipset).

So I guesss its now down to:

Asus NForce board w/ AMD 2700+ (DDR Ram)
or
Asus Mobo w/ Intel 850E chipset. (Rambus)
or
Asus Mobo w/ Intel 7205 chipset (DDR though unable to find as yet!)

Which one of the above do you guys think would be the best paired with a 9700 All in Wonder?

P.S. Thanks for all your help guys!

[Neo]

if you get 2 sticks of ddr400(pc3200) the nforce2 board with Dual ddr. will have near Rambus memory bandwith. Drr is also cheaper than Rambus. 109 dollar for a stick of pc3200(DDR400) 256mb with Rambus 1066 256mb. 125 dollars. The athlon is such a better processor. By that is my opinion.

[pauliescouse]

So does everyone think I'd be better going for a AMD or an Intel then?

The reason I liked the Intel was the 533MhzFSB that it offered - which is why I keep banging on about the 533Mhz FSB asus boards and in tests it seems that the i850 is better in *some* respects than the SiS648 c'set.

The problem is the machine has got to be "slightly" future proof - hence going for the radeon 9700 and the AGP8X (as I thought eventually this may be useful !) and for the 533Mhx FSB - if I got an E7205 board then that supports hyper threading with the new 3Ghz processers so it would mean in future I would only have to upgrade the chip and not the board as well - though in reality I would probably upgrade the board as well if I went for that sort of processor.

So, if you where in my position would you go for:

AMD 2700+ x nForce and DDR Ram
or
Intel P4 2.53Ghz w/ Asus P4S8X w/ Rambus

I quite like the idea of 533 FSB but really dont know what sort of bearing that would have in real life factors (i.e. games and apps) or whether it is worth going for that or a lower FSB AMD.

Oh decisions, decisions!

[Neo]

The 2700+ would beat the 2.53 in all games(The 2600+ does in benchmarks at tomshardware), but Quake because of the SSE2 instruction set. The only reason intel uses the 533 bus is so that it can be competive with AMD at 266mhz(The new Athlons run at 333mhz). The Float point in AMD is far better. As for which would be better. I run most games on a 1800+ with a geforce 2 mx and haven't had any problems. I am upgrading in the next few weeks to Asus Nforce2 board, 2 256 stick of pc3200(DDR400), and a Geforce 4200 8X agp or a ati 9500.

I wish I could be more helpful.

They are both great platforms. If you do go with intel go with an intel chip set. They are usually so much more stable.

[Fallguy]

Um,
regarding future proofing, neither platform will be upgradeable for more than 12 months - Intel will be moving to an 800Mhz bus in Q3 next year, and AMD will be transitioning to Socket 754 as its mainstream at about the same time. So forget about upgrading much - it just doesn't happen any more.... :(

Of your 2 system choices, I would take the AMD system straight off - a decent nForce 2 motherboard will have far far superior extra bits (dual NICs, amazing on-board sound, USB 2.0, Firewire, etc). Plus the 2700+ (or a 333Mhz 2600+) will outperform the 2.53Ghz P4 in most real world applications. Plus, as far as limited upgradeability goes, there will be 333Mhz Bartons around, so you could probably upgrade to a 3000+ or maybe even a 3200+ in future.

Fallguy

[bubbadog]

Didn't the P4G8X just get debuted at Comdex last week? It may not be out yet. I know they were playing up the Geforce FX card (NV30), but it won't actually be available til February.


(Note to self: Must save pennies!)

[mackerel]

Me :wave: to the AMD fan club above :D

Most reviews (e.g. www.tomshardware.com www.anandtech.com) I've seen comparing the CPUs show Intel to be a nose ahead most of the time for a given speed/speed rating, though the Athlon's strong point is it's FPU giving it a lead in some tasks. And that's with DDR memory, Rambus could give Intel a further lead.

Although the P4 doesn't so as well in tradition FP calculations, the SSE2 instructions more than make up for it when used. The AMD advantage is that it is a bit cheeper for a given performance rating than the equivalent speed Intel.

Currently I'm Intel biased as I've found Intel chipset systems to be more reliable and less problematic than the AMD/Via ones I've had in the past. Having said that, I think it was more due to Via chipsets than the AMD CPU. Assuming that is the case, if I were to get an AMD system I would go for a NForce2 chipset mobo too.

Back to the Intel side, although you would be hindering the CPU performance a bit, the single channel DDR chipsets work well. Currently I have two systems based on the i845 chipset at home, the newer of the two supporting the hyper-threading P4s should I feel an upgrade to 3 GHz+ CPUs comming on later...

[Fallguy]

To the contrary mackeral,
whilst the 2.53Ghz P4 will edge out the 2600+, the 2700+ (333 bus) with the nForce platform is significantly faster than the 2600+ (I know, all these PR ratings are so confusing) and consequently edges out the 2.53 even with RDRAM.

Personally I don't think there is much if anything performance wise between the chips. You aren't going to notice an extra 3 or 4 FPS difference either way with these chips in games... lol

Fallguy

[mackerel]

Just from memory, the benchmark results I recall were mostly done comparing Intel and AMD on single channel DDR platforms.

Recent dual-channel DDR benchmarks for both the NForce2 and the new Intel chipsets haven't given me the impression there is a huge improvement over a single channel. But it doesn't stop me from wanting it :D

I do agree that, above a certain point, the CPU speed becomes less important in gaming performance. Having said that, with a top end Radeon, have we reached the point yet where the video card becomes the primary limiting factor over the CPU?

From a performance viewpoint, the cost of an AMD/NForce2 combo is less than a similar Intel/Intel solution, so would be the choice is money is a concern. But for all out performance ignoring the cost, Intel is the way to go. But performance is only one factor, and the whole package needs to be considered.

That's without complicating matters with overclocking... ;)

[Fallguy]

If money was no issue,
a P4 3.06Ghz with E7205 would be the way to go, of course.... :D

But given the options presented, the nForce 2/2700+ combo is the best performance wise. It just makes you wonder what a P4 nForce platform would perform like....... nVidia have made the most advanced chipset on the planet in that board, the DASP alone is incredible. I guess thats why Intel won't give them a bus license - becuase they would make Intels in house platforms look fairly pathetic. I haven't been overly impressed with the performance of Intels chipsets recently, especially on the DDR front...:(

Fallguy

[mackerel]

Yup, the nForce 2/2700+ combo would probably be cheeper and faster than the Intel options proposed for current applications.

I suspect an Nforce2 for P4 would perform similarly to the E7205, maybe at a little less cost.

Myself, I can't see any cause for complaint with Intel DDR platforms. Ok, they don't deliver the bandwidth required for optimal performance of a P4. The same could be said for AMD, a higher fsb allows for better overall performance given the same core clock speed. The only difference is that the P4 has the higher fsb rate to allow for better performance without oveclocking, the Athlon is pretty much using all the bus already.

If I do have one niggle with Intel is that their long and thorough validation processes do end up with relatively stable and compatable platforms, it also means they are relatively slow to bring to market evolutions in components. I want dual channel DDR400 now! :)

[Fallguy]

Hmm,
I think that a P4 nForce, with dual channel DDR333, would actually outperform the E7205 quite noticeably. Not only would the latencies be lower (which would be the only direct improvement in bandwidth) but nVidias DASP pre-processing and data prefetching helps improve the sustained data throughput to the CPU. Given how bandwidth dependant the P4 is, this kind of system would probably have even more performance benefit than we have seen with the Athlon. More than that, throw in Hyperthreading and prefetching and sustaining the data flow is even more important.

In all I would put a dual channel DDR333 P4 solution from nVidia as between 5 and 10% faster in memory performance than the E7205.
In some applications that might even stretch as high as 15%.

Fallguy

[pauliescouse]

Hi guys,

THANK YOU ALL for all your help and suggesions. Im torn between an AMD 2700 with nForce board and DDR (something I wasnt going to consider) and a more stable (possibly:-) P4 2.53 with an i850 chipset.

Hmmmmmm...... Im thinking maybe the 2700+ but this is just a 2200Mhz clock is it? whereas the P4 is a proper 2.5 gighz chip.

Hmm, Ive heard that you can overclock the P4 to 3gighz but what aout the 2700?

What do you guys think?

(Im veering towards an AMD now with nForce mobo like Fallguy suggested!!!!)

[Fallguy]

Hmmm,
well if you are interested in overclocking, I wouldn't recommend AMD. Their chips do not overclock anywhere near as much as Intels at the moment. But then again if overclocking is your game, then neither is the i850 chipset a good idea, as it is difficult and expensive to find RDRAM that will overclock as high in bus speed as the chip is capable of.

Its swings and roundabouts really - the AMD system would be faster at stock speeds, but would suffer somewhat in terms of overclocking ability. The Intel system would be slower at stock speed, but would be able to overclock better, however to reach the full overclocking potential of the chip you would have to use DDR RAM, which would sacrifice some of the performance, negating some of the benefit of overclocking in the first place....

Overall clock speed is a completely superflous measure of performance, and whilst the AMD 2700+ is "only" clocked at around the 2.2Ghz mark, it will still outperform the higher clocked Pentium 4 solution (up to around 2.66Ghz, at which point the P4 starts to take the lead again) by virtue of having a greater number of instructions per clock (reffered to as IPC). Thinking of processor speed as analogous to a car engine, the clock speed would be equivalent to the RPM of an engine, it is part of the performance equation, but not all of it. IPC would be analogous to torque, and so when you combine the RPM and torque, you get a true measure of the performance of the engine - in output power. The P4 is effectively a high revving engine, but it has less torque than the Athlon, so whilst the Athlon revs lower, it can still match the P4 for output power. Intel propagates the myth that "clock speed matters" because it suits them to, but in reality thats like selling a moped as a performance machine, simply because it revs highly, without taking into account the fact that it doesn't actually produce much torque and consequently has low output power.

I don't think anyone here would object if I called the new "Celeron-P4" chips the "mopeds" of the CPU world - they have truly awful IPC, and are not very powerful at all.

Fallguy

[mackerel]

Although using DDR is less efficient for the P4 than RDRAM, the performance penalty isn't that great. For most tasks, you can regain the loss and more by overclocking. The main gamble is getting a "good" overclocking CPU. I have a 2.0A which only does 2.4 GHz, and a 1.8A that will easily do 2.8 GHz :)

Originally posted by Fallguy
[B]The P4 is effectively a high revving engine, but it has less torque than the Athlon, so whilst the Athlon revs lower, it can still match the P4 for output power. AMDs are diesels :)

Continuing the analogy, in the past although diesel engines were more economical than petrol engines, they severly lacked performance. The around the late 80's early 90s, diesel engines got a lot better and were comparable to petrol engines. What they lacked in revs they could still make up for in torque. But at the end of the day, most people still buy petrol cars...

I'd say the Celeron-P4 was more a motorbike than a moped. It does go fast if you give it a light load (fits inside small cache), but putting a large amount of weight on it (like a car) will make it struggle.

I would leave the moped description for the Via C3 processors. They don't run at high clock speeds, and do not make up for it in IPC efficiency. But if you don't want to shift tons, they do an adequate job fuel efficiently (low power).

[bldegle2]

get a 2.4, some good ram, and a p4b533-e, running one right now @3.048 gig and with a retail heatsink and fan.

haven't even got close to max vre yet, these are some sweet chips.

baldy:cool:

[pauliescouse]

Hi guys!

Right! Ive wittled it down to this system... outlay is somewhat limited now (circa £500) so Im thinking:


AMD Setup
========
Corsair XMS 3500 £200.69
AMD 2700+ £269.40
Asus nForce Mobo £123

Anyways hopefully ordering the components this week so any opinions on above rig would be welcomed!

Thanks guys,

Paul.