Best P4800FSB mobo?

[aReda]

Hello, I'm very new to overclocking and everything and am still researching and trying to learn it all.

Already I've learned a lot, but since all I ever bought was manufacturer's PC's (like from DELL) I don't know many things that would be useful to know about mobo's and overclocking.

My big questions is which mobo is best for a P4 800FSB CPU and WHY? Not necessarily for overclocking, but if I do indeed decide to (and I will), which one would best suit me and why? I am planning on replacing my mobo in my DELL 8200 PC (rates for 400FSB PC's up to 2.4GHz) and throwing in a P4800FSB mobo. Will I be able to do this? Now I know I'll have to buy different memory, CPU and PSU, but are there any other obvious obstacles I may encounter? Also, which new 800FSB CPU gives me the most bang for the buck and is the easiest to overclock?

Please, any information or help would be greatly appreciated. So far I'm leaning towards ASUS, but even then I don't know which one and why their different.

~Red

[Reknup]

the ASUS P4P800

[SoSl0w]

I had several friends steer me towards ASUS and so far so good. I have the P4P800 deluxe. It came with several features which I have actually used and alot that I have not.

It came with a 10/100/1000 onboard networking, nice feature but have yet to use it (1000 Mbps that is).
It came with ASUS smart overclocking AI, I am running at a very stable 20% O/C and have ran at 30%(briefly for benchmarking)
It has on onboard RAID controller, I am using that but according to a few bench marks it is lagging in performance.
It has 2 SATA HDD connectors that can be a RAID 0 if you choose, have no SATA HDD yet but again nice feature.
It came with an Intel 865PE chipset which is just under the Intel 875 chipset in performance. This chipset was supposed to be able to use the latest Prescotts but a few tests have found it can't
Of course it has an AGP and a plethera of PCI slots as well.

As for will you be able to do this? I think that you should.
You should be able to use you dell CPU with no problem if it is a P4. Also your old PSU should be adequate, hell look at the little form factors and their 200W PSU. Your memory will work if it is DDR but if it is PC133 you are out of luck. As far as which P4 for O/Cing, they all are about the same. Most O/Cing is done by the MoBo so that is where the easy part comes in. My 2.6 P4 runs at 3.1 on air cooling and a 5% O/C was fine on stock air cooling. A snag you may run into is any MoBo lack of a video card. If you are heavy into gaming a nice video card is a must but if you are just an internet surfer a cheap video card would suffice.

[aReda]

Thanks for the reply SoS|0w, inciteful

Few questions though. What's the difference between the 865PE and the 875 chipset? I'm going to want the latest mobo here. Also I hear some of these mobo's supporting all three 400, 533 and 800 FSB CPU speeds. In reality I'm going to get another CPU (prolly a 2.4-2.8 GHz 800FSB w/ HT) so I don't necessarily need the support for the older ones. As for my case. I am almost certainly going to buy a case (I don't care what it looks like) with fans comin' out of it's....well everywhere.

My memory is RAMBUS, so I assume I'll need to buy the DDR kind? Man memory has gotten confusing. Does DDR memory (I take it this is the latest) need to be installed in pairs like RAMBUS does? Hopefully not...

Thx for the help so far guys it helps a TON!

~Red

[SoSl0w]

The difference between the 875 and 865PE as I understand is the 875 is the latest and so far the best from intel. Meaning that it has the best potential for the recently released Prescotts and overall stability with an CPU. It is also more expensive.

Usually if the board is 800FSB compatible it should support the 533 and 400 FSB as well.

Definently get a case with a lot of fans and one that is roomy if you are going to O/C. I have a chieftec that has 5 80mm fans. It runs cool all of the time with the only drawback is that it can double as a table (thing is huge in my opinion). It is nice removable fan holders as well as removable HDD holders. The CD-Rom's are also held in by quick release tabs. THis is nice when it comes to working on the case and you need to access soemthing or swap drives around for better wire management.

You will need DDR of some kind. IF you are going with the 800 FSB you should buy DDR400 from a reputable manufacturer like Corsair, kingston, etc(do a search you will find alot of O/C memory reccomendations). I bought the TwinX DDR from Corsair. Basically it is regular DDR400 that is guarenteed to work in Dual Channel mode. You need two matching pair of memory to run in Dual Channel mode. Corsair made it easy by testing two sticks then selling them, basically making sure they will work. You can use 1 or 3 sticks but you can not run in Dual Channel mode. I bought 2x256=512 and so far this has sufficed.

[aReda]

Yeah I've been doing some research trying to figure out this Prescott thing. So far I have learned that when Prescott is released it should work on i865PE and i875 chipsets. I have also heard that Prescott has been released in 2.8-3.4GHz models, is this correct? If so, do you have any links or places where I can look at them and their prices?

You've helped me out a topn so far man thanks so much!

[SoSl0w]

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduc...codevalue=4186
The link above is Newegg. They usually have the cheapest prices. Any P4"E" will be the new Prescott. The EE is the latest Extreme Edition and is between 900-1000 dollars. Yes tthe P4E's go down to 2.8.

If you are expecting the Prescott to work in the P4P800 line from ASUS you may be out of luck for now.

Our Asus P4P800 and P4C800 motherboards would not operate with our 2.8GHz Prescott CPU. Checking the the Asus website for BIOS updates left us high and dry.

Here is the HardOCP link where that quote was from.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTg3