Replacement for P4P800

[SLB]

Im going to upgrade my system soon. What would be a good stable
board to replace my current m/b? Replacing the ram is np. Im just
wanting to be able to run the latest line of Intel Processors and
still have a reliable board that has served me as well as the P4P800
has.

 

[KingGuardian]

Im going to upgrade my system soon. What would be a good stable
board to replace my current m/b? Replacing the ram is np. Im just
wanting to be able to run the latest line of Intel Processors and
still have a reliable board that has served me as well as the P4P800
has.

The ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe.... very nice stable board. I've owned mine for
almost a year now and have had no problems what so ever. Mine is revision
2...not sure if there have been other revisions since then.

 

[Paul]

Im going to upgrade my system soon. What would be a good stable
board to replace my current m/b? Replacing the ram is np. Im just
wanting to be able to run the latest line of Intel Processors and
still have a reliable board that has served me as well as the P4P800
has.

To answer that question:

1) Interested in PCI Express video cards or AGP video cards ?
2) Interested in DDR2 or DDR memory ? (You've already indicated
a don't care for that one).
3) Socket 775 or Socket 478 (my guess is you want 775).
4) Overclockable or not. Intel makes some fine boards if
you don't want to overclock.

Uptake on product where every component is changed is not that
high, so there isn't a lot of user experiences in this group.

Personally, I'd wait for the second generation LGA775 boards,
with official support for the next highest FSB (is that FSB1066 ?).
Check the review sites like Anandtech or Tomshardware for an
ETA for product like that.

Realistically, what can you expect from an LGA775 board ?

1) PCI Express vs AGP is a bust. Which one wins is determined
by the number of pipes on the GPU, rather than bandwidth
starvation on the video card slot. So, picking the slot is
based on which one has the high end video card available for
it at the time. Obviously, this is PCI Express in the end.
2) Memory subsystem. At DDR2-400 or DDR2-533, probably nothing
is gained. Maybe at DDR2-600 there is some advantage ?
3) As long as Prescott speeds are the same on S478 and S775,
no reason to stampede towards S775 yet. If a 4GHz Prescott
available only on S775 comes out, then a new board is more
interesting.
4) If overclocking the P4P800, you could have problems at 1:1
CPU:MEM ratio. Using 5:4 and setting the CPU clock to 250MHz
might avoid this. So, if you are an overclocker, I can see
the need to shop for a new board, if you are experiencing
video artifact problems.
5) Cooling can be an issue. You didn't say which processor speed
you were interested in, but at 115W for some of them, you
are getting close to needing a water block, just to get
the heat out of the case without needing multiple case fans.
A big fat video card doesn't help matters.

No matter what you buy, investigate the power supply selection
carefully, as PCI Express cards have a different Aux power
connector, some Asus boards now use 24 pin ATX power etc.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Tim]

There is not much of an upgrade path at all for Intel users since there are
no significantly faster CPU's available yet. Since you have P4P800 I would
assume you have a Pentium 2.4 or faster and probably running DDR. Going to
say a 3.6GHz processor and replacing much else will not be a particularly
satisfying experience IMHO. 50% is not much of an upgrade at all unless you
are running applications that are particularly CPU hungry in which case
there will be some benefit.

A 50% performance boost would likely see you bored and disappointed within 5
minutes.

If you want to see a big increase then about the only options around at the
moment would be the AMD 64bit offerings, but there is still no Windows 64bit
OS coming out of beta (only Linux stuff) so that leaves you ready for it and
with quite some upgrade path, but again no great boost.

Intel is busy showing off dual CPU cores at the moment as is AMD. Intel has
also just announced that they will not have a 4GHz CPU out until next year.
So for those of us that could use a lot more CPU, there is either nothing
much on the horizon or dual cores with horribly high prices on the horizon.
I will leap at the opportunity to run duals again, but they are not suitable
for everyones work style.

Personally, I would hold off for some time unless of course you can get a
good price for your current system.

- Tim