Motherboard suggestions (a list)?

[MrMungus]

Getting a new computer. I think I've narrowed the choices down to these. Any suggestions/comments?

(Also: Via chipset issues? When is this a problem?)

Intel 865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU, Model "BOXD865PERLK"

ABIT 865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU, Model "IS7"

ASUS 865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU, Model "P4P800 Deluxe" -RETAIL

DFI 865PE Chipset Motherboard for Intel Socket 478 CPU, Model "LANPARTY 865PE"

[SaSi]

Motherboards are getting out like one per week. Hard to keep up.

An excellent source of information would be:
www.tomshardware.com.

Regarding the 865 chipset, I would rather recomment the 875 chipset. Also, a motherboard that supports dual channel RAM. Officially, the 865 doesn't but some motherboard manufacturers have tweaked the BIOS to support dual channel. Whether this is good or safe, well, I don't know.

Intel is not a good motherboard source. Limited features and relativelly high price. Asus is a good manufacturer. It's hard to go wrong with them. Also expensive.

After two SOYO and recently two ASUS m/b, I bought a Gigabyte 8KNXP m/b. Rather cheap, compared with ASUS. 8 USB2, 2 F/W ports, 10/100/1000 ethernet, 4 EIDE UDMA channels and 4 SATA connectors - 2 of them external and hot-swap. Also provides extra power circuitry that Gigabyte claims is vital for P4 at > 3GHz.

Comparing this m/b (P4/2.8) with an ASUS with an SIS chipset and a P4/2.67, the Gigabyte flies.

[VideoTechMan]

Whatever motherboard you decide to go with, do not get any MB that has the VIA chipsets....they are known to have alot of conflicts when it comes to video editing. MSI I have heard is a good brand too which is what I bought last summer, though I havent assembled it yet. From the specs of my board it has the 865PE chipset, and does support dual DDR400 RAM.

VTM

[MrMungus]

Motherboards are getting out like one per week. Hard to keep up.

An excellent source of information would be:
www.tomshardware.com.

Regarding the 865 chipset, I would rather recomment the 875 chipset. Also, a motherboard that supports dual channel RAM. Officially, the 865 doesn't but some motherboard manufacturers have tweaked the BIOS to support dual channel. Whether this is good or safe, well, I don't know.

Intel is not a good motherboard source. Limited features and relativelly high price. Asus is a good manufacturer. It's hard to go wrong with them. Also expensive.

After two SOYO and recently two ASUS m/b, I bought a Gigabyte 8KNXP m/b. Rather cheap, compared with ASUS. 8 USB2, 2 F/W ports, 10/100/1000 ethernet, 4 EIDE UDMA channels and 4 SATA connectors - 2 of them external and hot-swap. Also provides extra power circuitry that Gigabyte claims is vital for P4 at > 3GHz.

Comparing this m/b (P4/2.8) with an ASUS with an SIS chipset and a P4/2.67, the Gigabyte flies.

Huh...I thought the 865's supported dual channel natively (all the decriptions, including Intel's boards, say "supports DDR"). I guess I have some reading to do. Thanks.

I'm assuming the "Via chipset problems" I've read about here are for motherboards using the Via CHIPSET instead of Intel and not just Via chips in general...?

[MrMungus]

Whatever motherboard you decide to go with, do not get any MB that has the VIA chipsets....they are known to have alot of conflicts when it comes to video editing. MSI I have heard is a good brand too which is what I bought last summer, though I havent assembled it yet. From the specs of my board it has the 865PE chipset, and does support dual DDR400 RAM.

VTM

That's what I thought, too. Sasi, thanks for your input but do you have a link?

Now I'm wondering what the difference is between the 865 and 875 (especially since the price differences between the two are significant). All I see so far is the Communications Streaming Architecture (CSA) bus.

Reading this right now: http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030521/

"Our comparative test of various boards using the 865PE and 875P chipsets shows that, despite Intel's much touted PAT technology, the Canterwood chipset does not reach the top of the heap in performance tests. The actual $16 price difference between the two chipsets adds up to $40, plus the price of a motherboard. Consumers should therefore choose the cheaper 865PE board - ECC memory detection is hardly a convincing sales feature.

Our lab engineers made a curious discovery when they were examining the new 865PE board from MSI. By incorporating special logic circuitry, the manufacturer has succeeded in boosting the speed of the CPU through dynamic overclocking in such a way that it is not detectable with conventional benchmarking utilities like WCPUID, Intel Frequency Display, CPUZ, or SiSoft Sandra 2003. However, FSB and CPU speeds are only increased when applications are started or when benchmark programs have finished - subject to CPU usage reaching close to 100 percent. What sparked off our investigation was the observation that the 865 Neo 2 board from MSI was producing record scores in programs such as 3D Mark 2001 and 2003, despite the fact that the board's memory performance was lower than that of the rest of the field.

The only way to achieve this is through special logic circuitry for overclocking the 3-GHz processor to beyond 3.2 GHz. Each time a benchmark was finished, the FSB switched immediately back to 200 MHz and the CPU continued running at 3 GHz. Smart work! We would never have gotten to the bottom of this ingenious trickery had it not been for our development software. "