New system build; is P4C800-E a good choice?

[Paul]

Okay, after spending the past 2 weeks perusing the internet looking at
875 chipset motherboards, I think I've narrowed my decision to two
boards, the Abit IC7-G and the Asus P4C800-E. I'm leaning towards the
Asus simply because it appears to be the more stable board in stock
configuration (I don't overclock, at least yet), the amount of support
from this NG seems awesome (as we all know, Asus' support is DOA), and
in my P3 system I'm running a TUSL-2C, and have never had a problem with
it.

Some of my new system specs will be;

P-4 3.2ghz Northwood
1 GB of someone's RAM ???
160GB Western Digital HD 8MB
Audigy 2
ATI 9800 PRO

Question 1; I also have never gotten into a "raid" array or "striping"
drives, I only plan to use the WD 160GB drive. I'm assuming it won't be
a problem, however, since everything appears to be geared toward raid,
will I have problems setting up the HD?

Question 2; Is there a place on Asus' website that gives memory
compatibility? I'm thinking of using 1 GB of Corsair XMS RAM, but don't
know if I should use PC3200, 3500 or 4000. Why can't things be easy like
when I bought 256MB of PC133 SDRAM?

Question 3; I want to use the Audigy 2 card in place of the onboard
sound. How hard is it to disable onboard sound? On the Abit, the board
automatically recognizes the add in sound card and disables onboard
sound all by itself.

Thanks for everyone's help in advance. It's one of the reason's I'm
leaning toward the Asus board in the first place.

Paul

 

[Nick Zentena]

Okay, after spending the past 2 weeks perusing the internet looking at
875 chipset motherboards, I think I've narrowed my decision to two
boards, the Abit IC7-G and the Asus P4C800-E. I'm leaning towards the
Asus simply because it appears to be the more stable board in stock
configuration (I don't overclock, at least yet), the amount of support
from this NG seems awesome (as we all know, Asus' support is DOA), and
in my P3 system I'm running a TUSL-2C, and have never had a problem with
it.

Intel is supposed to release new LGA775 chips and I'm assuming Asus will
start shipping the matching motherboards soon after. Even if you don't want
the LGA775 socket it might make sense to wait the seven weeks or so.

Nick

 

[Paul]

And if I do purchase the P4C800-E, is there any noticeable difference
between the OEM and retail versions?

Thanks again,
Paul

 

[Nick Zentena]

And if I do purchase the P4C800-E, is there any noticeable difference
between the OEM and retail versions?

In my expierence the retail versions can be better.

Nick

 

[Tom Collin]

In my expierence the retail versions can be better.

Nick

With OEM, you will get just the board and nothing else. You will have
to download your own drivers and manual from Asus, not a prob if you
already have a broadband connection available. You will have to
supply all your own cables, and the one thing that was a bit of pain
was no EMF backplate for the rear ports. You can scrounge or get them
at auction, eBay et al., but it costs there. ElectroMagnetic
Frequency interference may not be a huge issue for you, but I find
dust is. Could use just cardboard I guess but the cutouts have to be
just so, or just let it go open and blow out the dust periodically.
Aslo the OEMs are often refurbed. They never gave me heartburn, but
YMMV.

TC

 

[Paul]

Intel is supposed to release new LGA775 chips and I'm assuming Asus will
start shipping the matching motherboards soon after. Even if you don't want
the LGA775 socket it might make sense to wait the seven weeks or so.

Nick

Why would you want an LGA socket ?
Let some other sucker test it for you.
Personally, I think the socket being used for AMD 64 bit
processors is superior, because it uses proven technology.
LGA is only there to save Intel some money. And they
won't be passing the savings on to the end user, either.

Paul

 

[Nick Zentena]

Why would you want an LGA socket ?

The day the LGA gets released the 478 stuff becomes old tech. No use
paying extra for a 875 chipset when in seven weeks it'll be on it's way
out. You can also forget much in the way of new chips for the 478. Like I
said it doesn't matter if you want the LGA chip. Waiting can save some
money. It's not like waiting forever. The new chip and it's chipsets are
supposedly very close.

Nick

 

[Tim]

Hi,

Take a look at this:

http://www.theregister.com/2004/05/07/intel_kills_tejas/

I wouldn't bet on anything Intel at the moment having any particular product
life.
Prescott is up to where? 3.2 or 3.4 GHz? It won't become significant until
it gets to 4GHz = 20% improvement which is not worth the effort of
manufacturing - and at this rate may never get much past that.

Paul: Also Nick's point can be read another way: current P4 prices will
shift down when new chips are released - a lower cost system for you. IE
stick with a P4 2.8 / 3 / 3.2c if you can get a 'c' chip - less heat and the
newer chips offer no performance improvement worth paying for at this time.

- Tim

 

[Memphoman]

Intel is supposed to release new LGA775 chips and I'm assuming Asus will
start shipping the matching motherboards soon after. Even if you don't want
the LGA775 socket it might make sense to wait the seven weeks or so.

Nick

Be AWARE, the LGA775 is a drastic change for motherbd makers. The
PINS for the processor are on the MB, not the processor, screw
up/bend/break 1 pin and MB becomes worthless. The hardware costs to
the MB makers is considerable $5-$7, considering the cost of the MB it
self. PLUS there are reports of corrupt sockets plaguing the makers
too. U may want to stick with current technology, and the P4C800-E
Deluxe is a killer MB...

 

[snoopy]

OEM usually carries a much shorter warranty I believe as well as not having
a bunch of stuff you'll need anyways. Go retail! I got the P4C800-E Deluxe
motherboard and love it so far. Had some issues with my Mushkin memory but
they resolved it very quickly and I was very impressed. The would recommend
them for that reason. I haven't gotten around to playing with overclocking.

 

[Pluvious]

||
||Question 2; Is there a place on Asus' website that gives memory
||compatibility? I'm thinking of using 1 GB of Corsair XMS RAM, but don't
||know if I should use PC3200, 3500 or 4000. Why can't things be easy like
||when I bought 256MB of PC133 SDRAM?
||

I use this ram with my P4C800-E Deluxe : Model#: TWINX1024-3200C2PT
http://tinyurl.com/22jbr I've had no problems at all even though its
not listed in the mobos manual. Highly recommend.

||Question 3; I want to use the Audigy 2 card in place of the onboard
||sound. How hard is it to disable onboard sound? On the Abit, the board
||automatically recognizes the add in sound card and disables onboard
||sound all by itself.
||

To disable the on-board sound its as simple as hitting DEL at boot to
get to the bios and then switching the on-board sound to disable. Its
at the top of the screen first entry on one of the tabs. (forget which
exactly.. you'll find it)

||Thanks for everyone's help in advance. It's one of the reason's I'm
||leaning toward the Asus board in the first place.
||
||Paul


Pluvious

 

[Paul]

Pluvious,
Thanks for the great info!!!

Paul

 

[Pluvious]

||Pluvious,
||Thanks for the great info!!!
||
||Paul

No problem. Glad to help. If you havn't had 1 gig of ram before,
you'll be shocked how much difference it makes from 512.



Pluvious

 

[Kevin Coates]

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Hash: SHA1

Okay, after spending the past 2 weeks perusing the internet ... I
think I've narrowed my decision to two boards, the Abit IC7-G and
the Asus P4C800-E.....

I went through the same thing back in January and settled on the Asus
P4C800-E Deluxe. I'm been very satisfied.

Some of my new system specs will be;

P-4 3.2ghz Northwood
1 GB of someone's RAM ???
160GB Western Digital HD 8MB
Audigy 2
ATI 9800 PRO

My system is similar P4 3.2, 2x512mb RAM, Audigy 2 ZS Platinum, ATI
AIW 9800 Pro, 2x250gb WD SATA, 2x120gb WD PATA.

Question 1; I also have never gotten into a "raid" array or
"striping" drives, I only plan to use the WD 160GB drive. I'm
assuming it won't be a problem, however, since everything appears to
be geared toward raid, will I have problems setting up the HD?

I never ran RAID before either but wanted to try striping. Initially I
was just going to run 1 RAID array using the 2 SATA drives. I had 2
120gb 8meg WD drives laying around and decided to add them as a second
array. The documentation in the manual left alot to be desired. I did
some head scratching. My recommendations are use the Intel RAID for
your RAID array. I presume you have 2 of those 160gm drives. The Intel
uses less overhead than the built in Promise controller. My
understanding is that the Promise shares throughput with other cards,
the Intel doesn't. You'll need to find the drivers for RAID on the
installation CD and put them on a floppy before beginning. When you
install windows it will ask for them. I found its best to only hook up
the primary RAID drives, the CD and the floppy. This way drive C will
be assigned to the OS array. If you want to add other drives or arrays
you can do that later after the OS is installed and drive C is
assigned. Otherwise your boot hard drive may come up with some
unconventional letter (F:, G: etc.) that you can't change without
jumping hoops.

Question 2; Is there a place on Asus' website that gives memory
compatibility? I'm thinking of using 1 GB of Corsair XMS RAM, but
don't know if I should use PC3200, 3500 or 4000. Why can't things be
easy like when I bought 256MB of PC133 SDRAM?

I didn't use Corsair but used 2 512mb PC3200 sticks. I didn't find a
place on their web site for compatibility.

Question 3; I want to use the Audigy 2 card in place of the onboard
sound. How hard is it to disable onboard sound? On the Abit, the
board automatically recognizes the add in sound card and disables
onboard sound all by itself.

I believe its the same type of auto sensing and there is also
configuration options in the bios to disable all the devices.

I like this board it runs quite well with the hardware I use. If I had
to do it all over again, the only thing I'd change is getting a larger
power supply. I have an Antec TruePower 430 which seems to be stable
but with all the drives it would probably be better to have a 480 or
550 watt model as a safety margin.

Good luck and happy building.

- --
Kevin Coates
Dewitt, NY USA
________________________________________________________________
(see headers for my pgp key, remove kc to reply by mail)
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[Thomas A. Horsley]

A minor (but irritating) issue with the P4C800-E is the COM ports.
If you want access to COM2, you'll need to read this:

http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley/p4c800e.html

Other than the lack of documentation on the COM2 connector, I
have had no problems with my P4C800-E, it seems very fast and stable.

Actually, one other problem I had was the microphone input on the
built-in audio - I've never gotten it to work (but since I don't need
it, I didn't try hard .
--email: (e-mail address removed) icbm: Delray Beach, FL |
<URL:http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley> Free Software and Politics <<==+

 

[Daniel Tonks]

A minor (but irritating) issue with the P4C800-E is the COM ports.
If you want access to COM2, you'll need to read this:

http://home.att.net/~Tom.Horsley/p4c800e.html

Other than the lack of documentation on the COM2 connector, I
have had no problems with my P4C800-E, it seems very fast and stable.

Yeah, I went through that. I had a 50/50 chance of buying the right version,
and of course my first purchase was wrong.

I think I needed the "crossover" cable, where (behind the plastic cover
where the wires are soldered to the port) the cable is split in half and
half goes to the top row and the other half goes to the bottom. The standard
"alternating" cable (where each wire alternates between top/bottom) was
wrong.

Also, since I didn't feel like wasting two slots on USB and Serial (and I
wanted two of the "auxilary" USB ports to go to the front of my case), I
stole the combo USB/game port bracket from my old P4T533-C, took out the
useless game port, and stuck the serial port in (along with a small piece of
metal to fill in the leftover space, as the serial port is smaller). Works
great.

- Daniel

 

[Arj]

Hi..
I have downloaded QVL for the above board ...i cant rember the site. if u
want i can send u the pdf file .
pse sent me a (e-mail address removed)

arju

 

[snoopy]

One thing that is annoying is the placement of some of the headers. They
are too close to and in amongst the PCI slots.

 

[JustinCase]

Be AWARE, the LGA775 is a drastic change for motherbd makers. The
PINS for the processor are on the MB, not the processor, screw
up/bend/break 1 pin and MB becomes worthless. The hardware costs to
the MB makers is considerable $5-$7, considering the cost of the MB it
self. PLUS there are reports of corrupt sockets plaguing the makers
too. U may want to stick with current technology, and the P4C800-E
Deluxe is a killer MB...

I agree. The P4C800-E Deluxe should be a fully
developed product now without any of the problems
(like the solder blob issue in the first series).
And that is a big plus.

I have the P4C800 Deluxe (without the E) which has
a raid function as an extra as I recall correctly.
The board is very fine and stable and functions
well with 2 GB memory.
I have had problems with the PSU but that is my
mistake. I underestimated the importance of the
power needed on the 12 V rail with the new P4
processor and some drives connected. Look for my
message in another thread.

Hyper threading (P4 2,4 GHz) functions without any
problem at all in XP SP1.
Up to now I only noticed 1 or 2 software
applications that do not accept HTT but ofcourse
this has no relation with the P4 and/or the board.
Almost certain such software incompatibility can
be corrected (e.g. choose for the W98 mode in XP -
this worked for me).

I'm considering to using RAID in the future. With
RAID I do not have to make backups as frequent as
now. And it should speed up things also.

JustinCase.