[daedal]

Hey guys n' gals,
I need to get myself a new motherboard and I'm not too sure what to be looking at.
I'm looking for an ASUS board for a 3.0Ghz Intel P4 Prescott-core.

My current setup it as follow:
Motherboard: ASUS P4R800-VM
Processor: Intel P4 Prescott @ 3.0Ghz
RAM: 2 x 256mb Crucial 400FSB DDR (Dual-Channel)
Cooling: Zalman CNPS7000

My current motherboard only allows for single-sided DIMMs which basically, limits my maximum RAM to 512mb. I want a motherboard that will at the very least allow me to use 1gig of it with Dual-Channel RAM. (2x512) or 2gigs (4x512 - so twice the dual channeling, if those exist ).

I really like ASUS despite the overall crappyness of my current board, but I'm open to any suggestions you guys may have.

And a few other things I'm wondering about related to this:

1. Intel PAT (Performance Acceleration Technology) - does it really work?
2. Should I drop my SoundBlaster Live 5.1 and use an on-board sound card instead? Heard that doing so may reduce heat and that it can actually run a bit faster. I know it's and old card so I'm wondering.
3. Is there a big difference between Intel 875P and 865PE chipsets? I know nothing about those so any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks for any information you might have that you can throw at me.

[robomosk]

Unless you really need to use ECC RAM, there is no perceptible difference between ASUS's versions of the 865 and 875 chipsets. You might be able to get a little more memory bandwidth out of the 875, but that's not really all that crucial. The Asus 865PE boards still have great bandwidth. Other than that, there is no difference. In fact, Asus got into a bit of trouble when they first released their 865 boards, because they were about $50 cheaper and performed the same as the 875 boards. As you might imagine, Intel didn't like that. So, they made Asus stop advertising that PAT worked on 865 boards. Asus just called it something else, I forget exactly what, but it's the same thing. Now, there is a slight difference between PAT and whatever Asus calls it, but that's because of the way the boards are manufactured.

As you might know, in fab plants, they only really make one type of board or chip, and the best ones are sold for higher prices. The ones that come out with some problem somewhere just have some part of them disabled, and are sold as a cheaper version of the board or chip. This is true for processors, chipsets, graphics cards, etc. That's basically what Intel did with the 865/875. The 865 chipsets are mainly (though not completely) 875 chipsets with PAT disabled because it didn't work exactly as Intel wanted it to. Asus simply re-enabled it. So, there is a real chance that you might get an 865 board where PAT works really well, or vice versa. I have the Asus p4p800-e, and it works pretty well, and I would really recommend the board. There is a chance you could get the same board and PAT wouldn't work. I don't know what the probability of that would be, but I would guess that it's small. If you want a guarantee that it would work, you'd have to get the 875 boards, which are more expensive.

As for your other question, I don't see any reason to get rid of the soundcard, especially if it supports EAX. If it's too old for that even, then the onboard sound is fine. Except, I personally like what EAX does for sound quality in games, so I would spring for a cheap audigy 2 if your sblive doesn't support EAX, rather than use the onboard sound. I think audigy 2s are down to like $50 these days. The audigy 2 zs is also available, but the only difference between the 2 is that the zs supports 7.1 sounds, whereas the regular audigy 2 only supports 6.1. There are some driver differences, but if you search the forums here, you can find out how to install the zs drivers on the regular card and erase any differences.

But as far as a heat issue goes, I don't think you really have to worry about that. Heat wouldn't slow the system, and any overclocking you would do shouldn't affect the PCI bus at all, since Asus has a pci/agp lock in the bios that you should enable if you're going to overclock.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend the p4p800-e deluxe, or the p4c800-e deluxe, if you think the 875 is worth the extra money.

[daedal]

Wow.. now that, THAT was a nice reply.
Thank you; you've answered my questions.

[No_Style]

If you're going to overclock, I highly recommend getting a P4C800-E. A lot of overclockers recommend it over the P4P800-E. I have a P4P800-E and I'm overclocking it modestly to 3.3 GHz from a 3.0E. I'm having weird issues with my 3.0E and I'm thinking it's the 865PE's chipset at fault for me.

It's worth noting that the ASUS P4P800-E does have Hyper Path (aka PAT) functionality at 200 FSB or less. (You can enable PAT for 200 FSB and over by doing "Big Toe's PAT mod" from ABXZone's forums.)

So it really boils down to how much you're willing to spend on an aging socket 478 motheroard and if you're going to overclock or not.

[Nuke209]

P4C800-E Deluxe Man, WHOOO, one of the best board I've ever used

[daedal]

Thanks for the help. I appreciate your input.
After reading several reviews and comparing prices, I'll pick up the P4P800-E DX. It seems to be as fast as the 875P-based models and almost 100$ cheaper.

Very much appreciate the input, guys.