Recommend motherboard?

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:51 pm

Whats the current best motherboard for scope compatibllity? for an intel CPU

siberiansun · Post by **siberiansun** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 9:06 pm

intel, 850 and up.

Sunshine · Post by **Sunshine** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 4:53 am

In this forum you`ll also find many happy 845 users.... using the P4B533 from Asus.

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 7:57 am

I'm joining nprime in this question.

I have read about a lot of boards and my choice is revolving towards the Asus P4P800 with the 800Mhz Front-side Buss.

I know that new and better boards are coming out all the time...

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 10:37 am

recommend for top performance Intel D875PBZ or Asus P4C800-E Deluxe. The Asus if you need more then just LAN and USB. good+cheap+all for Gigabyte 8KNXP.

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Wed Oct 01, 2003 11:35 am

i'm currently using the intel 815 chipset, and the system has been rock solid with it.
thanks for the replies!

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Sat Oct 04, 2003 9:00 am

On 2003-10-01 11:37, Micha wrote:
recommend for top performance Intel D875PBZ or Asus P4C800-E Deluxe. The Asus if you need more then just LAN and USB. good+cheap+all for Gigabyte 8KNXP.

Micha, have you tested these boards?

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Sun Oct 05, 2003 1:40 pm

I'm in the selection-process as well and I have 2 boards on my short-list: Asus P4C800-E Deluxe and Giga-Byte 8KNXP.
So Micha, if you have real experiences with the 3 boards you mention please share them with us

Cheers,
Rob

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 3:12 am

Boards working here except Intel, which will be my next. Fastest tested by PCPro, and all I need is USB. The Gigabyte is really cheap. If performance is not that important (+all of these boards are really fast)...

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 3:30 am

@Micha: funny to read that the Gigabyte is really cheap. Here in the Netherlands the 8KNXP is about the same price or a bit more compared to the P4C800-E deluxe (about 220 Euro).
Did you run a MV test on these boards? Do you consider one of these boards your favourite, and if so, Why?
Sorry 'bout all these questions, but it doesn't happen very often that I get in contact with someone that uses both items that I have on my shortlist.
Hope you'll share some more of your experiences with us.
Thanx,
Rob

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[ This Message was edited by: Rob van Berkel on 2003-10-06 04:31 ]

EarlyFirst · Post by **EarlyFirst** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 11:30 am

Gigabyte GA7NNXP with DPS

boom

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 12:11 pm

On 2003-10-06 12:30, EarlyFirst wrote:
Gigabyte GA7NNXP with DPS

boom

Did it explode ??

EarlyFirst · Post by **EarlyFirst** » Mon Oct 06, 2003 1:13 pm

That's pretty funny, no it didn't but it's stable as hell compared to any board I have "ever" had, well besides the Dual i815 Acorp I did make go boom

Sunshine · Post by **Sunshine** » Tue Oct 07, 2003 4:12 am

So another Vote for the Nforce-400 ...

How many instances of MVs were you able to run on that mobo? Or what about your own high end reverbs? I´m also looking for two new mobos right now and would appriciate more comments. Which PCI slots are you using and which IRQ´s did you assign to those cards (assuming you have more than one). Did you install your OS in ACPI or Standard PC mode? And what Ram are you using?

[ This Message was edited by: Sunshine on 2003-10-07 06:23 ]

Micha · Post by **Micha** » Wed Oct 08, 2003 9:48 am

No MV tests here. Boards are used in research. They have to compile a compiler as first task. (takes ~2 hrs. - if successful

)

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 3:00 pm

Well I've made my choice: Asus P4C800 E Dlx.

It's equiped with a 2.8 P4, and 2x512M of ddr400 memory.
So still no comparision to make between the boards, but I do have a MV test:

The test is somewhat limited, as the 12DSP's kept me from loading more MV's. But I was able to run 15 of them, which I find quite impressive, and definitely enough to get things going.
As you can see I'm still running Win98SE (lite, that is). It has no problem running with 1Mb of RAM as long as you limit the vcache not to cross that 512Mb boundary.
BTW, I disabled HT in BIOS, and I run 2 regular ATA drives without raid.
As I said before, I cannot compare my board to others mentioned in this thread, but from what I experienced until now I can definitely recommend this baby.
Cheers,
Rob

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[ This Message was edited by: Rob van Berkel on 2003-10-11 16:03 ]

Sunshine · Post by **Sunshine** » Sat Oct 11, 2003 3:55 pm

Oh, thanks Rob....

I have a question or two

Which PCI slots did you put your cards into?
And which IRQs did you assign to your cards?
Is it possible to assign IRQs in your Bios?
I´ve forgotten how things worked whith W98...

Rob van Berkel · Post by **Rob van Berkel** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 2:20 am

I have the Pulsar 2 (with the IO's) in slot 4, which is connected to P_IRQ line 'E' on the ICH5 (the south bridge). This line is shared (physically) with the firewire device which I never use.
The XTC is in slot 3, connected to P_IRQ line 'H'. It has to share this line with the USB2 controller and the Promise SATA raid controller, both I don't use.
So the boards don't share physical interrupt lines with other devices in use. In the software (Win98) the Pulsar2 is on IRQ 10, together with the firewire device, the SMBus device and the USB 1.1 device (and 3 ACPI steering IRQ devices). That usb device was made to share by Win98, as it has to map 24 physical interrupt lines to an old table of 16 software interrupts. The XTC is on IRQ 5 sharing it with the firewire device.
And... it all works

Marvelous isn't it?

Oh, about assigning interrupts - it can't be done. All you can do is reserve interrupts for legacy non-PNP cards. You could of course do that, and then assign the interrupt of your boards manually in Win98. I see no advantage in doing so, so I never tried.
Cheers,
Rob

Sunshine · Post by **Sunshine** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 3:59 pm

Once again, thank you very much Rob! That was a really detailed description.
Well, I`m just a bit concerned since so many devices must share IRQ 5 and 10. From my experience IRQ 5 and 10 are the most important IRQs.... those IRQs give you the best and most reliable performances whith Creamware cards. I wonder how things will turn out under WinXP where Hyperthread and such will lead to automatic assignments of those IRQs.... I think if necessary, HT must be disabled, just to give those cards the right IRQs. hmmm

Jem · Post by **Jem** » Sun Oct 12, 2003 4:16 pm

I have been using the intel D875PBZ bonanza motherboard for 6 months now, switched from an Asus 845 chipset. And this board is rocksolid and fast as hell.
Using a P2.6 processor and 1Gb kingston ram memory.

the best board I ever had and prefect for scope.