Best chipset for socket 478 ?

[RS]

What's the best chipset for a P4 in socket 478 ? Intel? Sis ? Via ?

Thanks for any informed opinions !

-RS-

 

[Conor]

What's the best chipset for a P4 in socket 478 ? Intel? Sis ? Via ?

Intel.

 

[Bob Davis]

What's the best chipset for a P4 in socket 478 ? Intel? Sis ? Via ?

Thanks for any informed opinions !

I agree with Conor. No matter what is said, Intel is the industry standard,
and I've found they provide the best compatibility and stability. I'm
running the 875p in this desktop along with a P4 3.4 mhz Northwood, and my
notebook has a 915 chipset with P4 Prescott 630 (3.0 mhz). The desktop has
been remarkable for its stability for nearly three years.

 

[Alan Walpool]

Bob> I agree with Conor. No matter what is said, Intel is the
Bob> industry standard, and I've found they provide the best
Bob> compatibility and stability. I'm running the 875p in this
Bob> desktop along with a P4 3.4 mhz Northwood, and my notebook has a
Bob> 915 chipset with P4 Prescott 630 (3.0 mhz). The desktop has been
Bob> remarkable for its stability for nearly three years.

Would concur with that also. I have an 875p chipset based computer
that as a general purpose server. The only time it goes down is for
kernal upgrades, to change a harddisk, or the power goes off. However,
the non-intel chipsets have improved.

Another thing nice about intel is there support site is great. I can
still find information about eight year old ppro motherboard. I
recently even upgrade the bios to the latest version amazing.

Later.

Alan

 

[fleet]

Would concur with that also. I have an 875p chipset based computer
that as a general purpose server. The only time it goes down is for
kernal upgrades, to change a harddisk, or the power goes off. However,
the non-intel chipsets have improved.

Another thing nice about intel is there support site is great. I can
still find information about eight year old ppro motherboard. I
recently even upgrade the bios to the latest version amazing.

Later.

Alan

It's hard to find mb's with 875 chipset now but 865 is just as good.

 

[Bob Davis]

It's hard to find mb's with 875 chipset now but 865 is just as good.

Asus P4C800E-Deluxe boards are fairly common on Ebay, mostly used, and they
have the 875p. I've assembled about six systems in the past six months with
this mobo and P4 Northwood CPU's, and they are all stable. I'm not wild
about the AMI bios, however, especially early versions that get the drive
order mixed up when using IDE drives in mobile racks.

The only difference I know of between the 865 and 875 chipsets is ICH5 vs.
ICH5R. On the latter, you have RAID0 and 1 options. If you won't be doing
RAID, the 865 should be just as good, although many 865 boards have on-board
RAID controllers, like Promise or Silicon Image.

I have a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP (875 chipset), and although very scarce and still
expensive, is a very stable platform. It has three on-chip and on-board
RAID controllers.

 

[nobody]

What's the best chipset for a P4 in socket 478 ? Intel? Sis ? Via ?

Thanks for any informed opinions !

-RS-

Why bother? 478 is a goner. Investing in it now is almost like
throwing money out the window. It makes sense to build 478-based
system only if you are getting the components free (or next to that).
In case you get them free, usually you don't have a choice of chipset
;-)

Only if you already have the CPU and it is relatively decent (2.4+) it
might make sense to buy a board for it. In this case Intel is
technically the best, but you better go with the cheapest one you can
get, and that one will probably be not Intel. You'll lose a few
points of performance, but the times when 478 was at or near the top
of performance charts are long gone anyway - 2003, to be exact.

If you can wait a few more months, there will be a choice between
Conroe from Intel and Athlon64 (socket AM2) from AMD. If you need the
system right now, A64 or Opteron (socket 939) is the way to go. If
you insist on Intel, go with socket 775 (more expensive and not as
good a performer as AMD, but will work). Both ways, 775 or 939, you
get today's high end performance. Or, if the money is tight, the low
end of both sockets would give you decent performance today - about as
good as highest end of 478 - for about as much or even less money
(especially 939), and a viable upgrade path.

NNN

 

[RS]

Thanks,

Yeah I realize the 478 is not current. I have a Prescott 2.8/1M/800 . I
bought a reburbed Shuttle 865PE AB60R ... foolishly not knowing that it
doens't support anything much except Northwood.

For the Prescott, I am thinking of the Asus P4V8X-MX
(http://usa.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=12&l3=221&model=682&modelmenu=1)
, which is a VIA chipset mobo.

Comments ?

Thanks for the background info on the current state of the art. I realize
that Intel dual-core is being promoted right now .... If I get the P4V8X-MX
for my Prescott, I still need something for my Shuttle AB60R ... but it's
not worth spending much on a CPU for it, is it ?

Would be interesting to see some benchmarks that compare say the Prescott
and the new dual-core stuff ... and the new AMD stuff.

-RS-

 

[Johannes]

Why bother? 478 is a goner. Investing in it now is almost like
throwing money out the window. It makes sense to build 478-based
system only if you are getting the components free (or next to that).
In case you get them free, usually you don't have a choice of chipset
;-)

Only if you already have the CPU and it is relatively decent (2.4+) it
might make sense to buy a board for it. In this case Intel is
technically the best, but you better go with the cheapest one you can
get, and that one will probably be not Intel. You'll lose a few
points of performance, but the times when 478 was at or near the top
of performance charts are long gone anyway - 2003, to be exact.

I build with a Northwood 2.8/800 in July 2004, it will still be my main
computer for years to come because it isn't slow and it's very cool (39C).
Motherboard is a Gigabyte with Intel 875P chipset.

 

[Johannes]

Asus P4C800E-Deluxe boards are fairly common on Ebay, mostly used, and they
have the 875p. I've assembled about six systems in the past six months with
this mobo and P4 Northwood CPU's, and they are all stable. I'm not wild
about the AMI bios, however, especially early versions that get the drive
order mixed up when using IDE drives in mobile racks.

The only difference I know of between the 865 and 875 chipsets is ICH5 vs.
ICH5R. On the latter, you have RAID0 and 1 options. If you won't be doing
RAID, the 865 should be just as good, although many 865 boards have on-board
RAID controllers, like Promise or Silicon Image.

I have a Gigabyte GA-8KNXP (875 chipset), and although very scarce and still
expensive, is a very stable platform. It has three on-chip and on-board
RAID controllers.

For what it's worth, I read somewhere that the difference between 865 and 875
is that the 875 has something Intel calls PAT = 'Performance Acceleration
Technology". PAT is present in the 865, but disabled. Intel intended to
differentiate the chips for different price segments of the market. However,
to Intel's dismay, some motherboard manufacturers found ways of using
undocumented features to enable the PAT on the 865. But it may require a
specific BIOS upgrade.

 

[Alan Walpool]

Johannes> For what it's worth, I read somewhere that the difference
Johannes> between 865 and 875 is that the 875 has something Intel
Johannes> calls PAT = 'Performance Acceleration Technology". PAT is
Johannes> present in the 865, but disabled. Intel intended to
Johannes> differentiate the chips for different price segments of the
Johannes> market. However, to Intel's dismay, some motherboard
Johannes> manufacturers found ways of using undocumented features to
Johannes> enable the PAT on the 865. But it may require a specific
Johannes> BIOS upgrade.

True. Another difference and some folks think it is minor and some
folks think it is not. 875 chipset support ECC memory and the 865 does
not support ECC memory.

That is why I went with the 875, and at the time I purchased my 875 it
cost the same as the 865. Of course it was on special. ;-\

I will have this computer for a long time unless it blows up or
stolen. ;-).

Heck I still use my ppro as a firewall computer and it runs great. I
have had to replace a power supply and a fan.

Whatever. Hope you enjoy your new old computer ;-\

Later,

Alan

 

[Bob Davis]

For what it's worth, I read somewhere that the difference between 865 and
875
is that the 875 has something Intel calls PAT = 'Performance Acceleration
Technology". PAT is present in the 865, but disabled. Intel intended to
differentiate the chips for different price segments of the market.
However,
to Intel's dismay, some motherboard manufacturers found ways of using
undocumented features to enable the PAT on the 865. But it may require a
specific BIOS upgrade.

My GA-8KNXP (875p chipset) rev. 1 board has no PAT option in the bios, but I
believe rev. 2 does. It must be a bios tweak for it to become available
with 875's too.

 

[nobody]

Would be interesting to see some benchmarks that compare say the Prescott
and the new dual-core stuff ... and the new AMD stuff.

There are tons of benchmarks at many places, one of these is Anand's,
the latest one is
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2668 for high end
dual core stuff, but you'll find earlier ones including Prescott
there. Even without benchmarks I can tell you that your 2.8 in single
thread tasks (most games) will be identical to Pentium D 820, which is
nothing more than 2 Prescott 2.8 cobbled together sharing the bus and
chocking each other for the data. Both will be blown out of the water
by the cheapest A64 s939 - is it 3000 or 3200? don't remember off the
top of my head. Dual cores start showing their superiority only in
multithreaded apps that are still few and far between; or if you like
to work on your PC while scanning for viruses or encoding stuff in the
background.

NNN

 

[sbb78247]

Asus P4C800E-Deluxe boards are fairly common on Ebay, mostly used,
and they have the 875p. I've assembled about six systems in the past
six months with this mobo and P4 Northwood CPU's, and they are all
stable. I'm not wild about the AMI bios, however, especially early
versions that get the drive order mixed up when using IDE drives in
mobile racks.
The only difference I know of between the 865 and 875 chipsets is
ICH5 vs. ICH5R. On the latter, you have RAID0 and 1 options. If you
won't be doing RAID, the 865 should be just as good, although many
865 boards have on-board RAID controllers, like Promise or Silicon
Image.

BZZZZZT! Thank you for playing.

Asus p4p800 has the intel raid contoller on an 865 chipset. Oh, and it does
raid 0 or 1.

we have some nice parting gfts.........

 

[RS]

The Asus P4P800 SE does seem to be a nice motherboard from what I have read
so far ...

-RS-

 

[sbb78247]

The Asus P4P800 SE does seem to be a nice motherboard from what I
have read so far ...

-RS-

not bad for a 3 year old design, but unless its really cheap or free.......

 

[RS]

By no means free ... and from looking on eBay and generally on Google -- not
extremely cheap !! :-(

But I have the Prescott 2.8E already ... which I would like to make use of.
The questions is:

**connect it to what motherboard?**

Instead of something like the relatively deluxe full-size Asus P4P800 SE
with its Intel chipset and Gb LAN, there is, for example, the somewhat
newer, micro-sized Asus P4V8X-MX with its VIA chipset.

It looks like, in my market (Canada), the P4P800 SE is about $30 more than
the P4V8X-MX.

Which makes more sense to get ... assuming I want to use my Prescott 2.8E ?

Thanks,

-RS-

 

[sbb78247]

By no means free ... and from looking on eBay and generally on Google
-- not extremely cheap !! :-(

But I have the Prescott 2.8E already ... which I would like to make
use of. The questions is:

**connect it to what motherboard?**

Instead of something like the relatively deluxe full-size Asus P4P800
SE with its Intel chipset and Gb LAN, there is, for example, the
somewhat newer, micro-sized Asus P4V8X-MX with its VIA chipset.

It looks like, in my market (Canada), the P4P800 SE is about $30 more
than the P4V8X-MX.

Which makes more sense to get ... assuming I want to use my Prescott
2.8E ?

Thanks,

-RS-

I am not a real fan of Via chipsets, but, they do work. also this one gives
you onboard and an agp slot for graphics. i have one similar in an msi
based system at the office
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=pM8M-v&class=mb and it
is stable, the onboard graphics sucked, so in went an apg card. so why not
if it fits your needs.

just remember YMMV.


--
sbb78247

Speak the truth and leave shortly there after.

 

[fleet]

True. Another difference and some folks think it is minor and some
folks think it is not. 875 chipset support ECC memory and the 865 does
not support ECC memory.

I don't remember my Abit IC7 mb manual saying it supported ECC. I don't
buy ECC anyway, it's a tad slower, costs more and is not needed for my
purposes.

 

[fleet]

By no means free ... and from looking on eBay and generally on Google -- not
extremely cheap !! :-(

But I have the Prescott 2.8E already ... which I would like to make use of.
The questions is:

**connect it to what motherboard?**

Instead of something like the relatively deluxe full-size Asus P4P800 SE
with its Intel chipset and Gb LAN, there is, for example, the somewhat
newer, micro-sized Asus P4V8X-MX with its VIA chipset.

It looks like, in my market (Canada), the P4P800 SE is about $30 more than
the P4V8X-MX.

Which makes more sense to get ... assuming I want to use my Prescott 2.8E ?

Thanks,

-RS-

I would spend the extra 30 bucks and get the Asus. The Intel chipset is
very stable.