Need advice un mobo upgrade

[BrianB]

Spoke to Phil earlier and looks like I will need a new mobo for my Mach ll.

Currently have an ABit IC7G with Northwood 875 2.8@3.6 and 1gb OCZ pc3700. I cannot afford the PCi Express route yet so I need recommendations for a 775 board and cpu. (has to be Intel - need HT). It will also need Gigabit Lan, 4 sata headers, and 4 pci slots as my Graphics card reduces usable slots to 3.

I'm looking at a 3ghz Prescott but am open to recommendations. As its my work machine it would need to run a stable overclock (I'll be happy at 3.6 again)

Any ideas?

Brian

 

[stocky]

Would a cheaper alternative not be to stick with the hardware you have and buy an IC7-MAX3 or ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe? These are the best boards for your current hardware; I'm assuming its just the mobo which is dead?

 

[BrianB]

I could do that, but chances are when I remove the head from the cpu (its been stuck to it for a year with LOTS of string) I will damage the cpu anyway. Also I do not want to get too far behind on the hardware curve, I could also use the extra computing power the 775 setup would bring

 

[Thickbrit]

The only suitable boards for 775,agp and ddr1 are:-

Asus p5p800

Dfi 875p-t

Abit as8

None of which are particularly great boards,the dfi is good to a point,but wont do much more than 275fsb and is the only 875 chipset board,the abit likes lots of v-mods to get the best from it and it is best on 5/4 as 1/1 sux but will probably reach highest fsb,the asus is solid but not a great clocker and lacks v-dimm beyond 2.9v.

 

[K404]

i`ve hard the Gigabyte IPE775Pro is a great board- supports DDR1 and AGP. Iwas almost swayed by it when I was thinking about moving to S939...

Never tried it though, so cant say for sure

 

[BrianB]

Its been over a year since I looked at hardware so I'm a bit rusty on the latest stuff - are there any good boards using the VIA PT880 dual solution?

 

[Mindless-Moron]

sure we cant tempt you toward the amd dual core route? i dont really follow intel anymore, they're releasing something new all the bloody time, and this whole new "Viiv" marketing lark, grrage. the 915p is an alright budget chipset with agp, but when it comes to speed a 3ghz presshot is actually rather slow, plus theres teh cooling woes, my 3.2 is god aweful slow and it now won't overclock.

 

[maverik-sg1]

sure we cant tempt you toward the amd dual core route? i dont really follow intel anymore, they're releasing something new all the bloody time, and this whole new "Viiv" marketing lark, grrage. the 915p is an alright budget chipset with agp, but when it comes to speed a 3ghz presshot is actually rather slow, plus theres teh cooling woes, my 3.2 is god aweful slow and it now won't overclock.

Agreed - AMD is a great way to go right now, if your gonna change the componets you have listed might I suggest:

DFI Lanparty SLI-DR (or the RDX200)

A8N-SLI

Athlon X2 3800 (make it topless - see shigsy) - or Operton 144

TCCD or BH5 ram (or get 2GB of the new corsair PC4400)

X800GTO PCI-E (as fast as what you have now for £100)

The alternative is the asrock motherboard (socket 939) it has AGP and PCI-E - not overly furnished with overlcocking features.

I also hear that the ECS SLI Extreme has some good features.

It's a false economy to choose the upgrade path your are looking at now - ebay what you have and search ebay for some good deals to get you on the Skt939 and PCI-E/SLI/crossfire ladder.

Plus it's xmas soon - ask santa for some help, tis the season to be jolly!!

 

[BrianB]

Thanks for the help guys - while I appreciate that some are big fans of AMD, its not great for workstations where you are doing multiple tasks (and video rendering) simultaneously - hence my mention of needing HT - although I do game on it this is my work machine and I cannot do without this feature (Hyper-threading) which only Intel supplies at the moment.

Although VIA have a PT880 chipset option for a 775/AGP combo, its only only on budget boards at the moment, so it looks as if I'll stick to 478 at the moment. To fully upgrade to 775 or 939 etc I would need upwards of £700 which I don't have at the moment. A new 478 and 3ghz P4 I can get for around £250 on ebay. Means I can still use my OCZ 1gb matched PC3700. As a footnote I will not be touching SLI until the current problem of having to have two identical boards is sorted

 

[GoLLuM4444]

Thanks for the help guys - while I appreciate that some are big fans of AMD, its not great for workstations where you are doing multiple tasks (and video rendering) simultaneously - hence my mention of needing HT - although I do game on it this is my work machine and I cannot do without this feature (Hyper-threading) which only Intel supplies at the moment.

Although VIA have a PT880 chipset option for a 775/AGP combo, its only only on budget boards at the moment, so it looks as if I'll stick to 478 at the moment. To fully upgrade to 775 or 939 etc I would need upwards of £700 which I don't have at the moment. A new 478 and 3ghz P4 I can get for around £250 on ebay. Means I can still use my OCZ 1gb matched PC3700. As a footnote I will not be touching SLI until the current problem of having to have two identical boards is sorted

Sounds like you've been brainwashed by Intel. I'd say the X2s are much better for multitasking and so would the CPC benchmarks.

Crossfire for unmatched cards? Or do you have an nVidia card now that you want to keep? Also I don't think a new X2 3800 and agp mobo would cost £700 TBH.

EDIT: Since you said you had AGP I'm guessing you don't have a SLi/Crossfire ready card - silly me.

 

[stocky]

Well if you do bust your CPU and you like your HT, I have a 3.4es skt478 Prescott in classifieds

But I doubt HT could even touch a dual core...

 

[equilibrium]

Mobo

Hi Just had a quick read, i have an asus p4s800 board lying around if you want it? Im not sure if its any use to you but maybe you can use it till you save up for your new rig?

Anyway Hope this helps?

DAve

 

[maverik-sg1]

Thanks for the help guys - while I appreciate that some are big fans of AMD, its not great for workstations where you are doing multiple tasks (and video rendering) simultaneously - hence my mention of needing HT - although I do game on it this is my work machine and I cannot do without this feature (Hyper-threading) which only Intel supplies at the moment.

To fully upgrade to 775 or 939 etc I would need upwards of £700 which I don't have at the moment. A new 478 and 3ghz P4 I can get for around £250 on ebay. Means I can still use my OCZ 1gb matched PC3700. As a footnote I will not be touching SLI until the current problem of having to have two identical boards is sorted

I have to agree with Gollum, PCMark and Custom PC benchmarks are dominated by AMD CPU's so I am not convinced that HT helps.

I am not an AMD fan as such, I am a fan of the quickest, right now that's AMD - many say it will be 2 more years before Intel make a come-back

3800 dual core £250

A8N-SLI Mobo £90 from ebay (or DFI SLI DR from Scorchio if he still has it)

RAM you can use what you already have to tide you over so no biggie there.

CPU Kit form phil £60

X800GT PCI-E £100 or go for a 6800GT of the bay

Total = £500ish

Phil might even do you a package deal on brand new items as listed above if you ask him nicely - that gets you a foot on the PCI-E ladder with plenty of OC potential with better processing power than you have now and a reasonable spec Graphic card thats at least as quick as what you have already.

Take off what you can get back off the bay for your existing items and the investment is not as much as you might think.

Also, I have found that heating the mobo and head up with a hairdryer (after leaving PC switched off overnight) makes it a lot easier to disassemble without damaging the underlying components - then use a ball of seal string to 'dab' the reminents off the board and head.

Go on, you know you want to

 

[equilibrium]

Amd all the way!!!

Amd all the way!!!!! I changed from pentium and never looked back!

 

[Mindless-Moron]

dude please not the bold font.

anyway a dual core will own HT, ht is good but when confronted with dual core it cowers, and the P D ee dual core with ht isnt that hot the hyper threading is pretty poo on it. buy amd, superior chips and you dont have to spend ludicrous amounts of money just the keep them at a nice temperature.

 

[BrianB]

Again, thanks for the input, advice and offers - some of you have pm's

Heres my reasons for not going the whole hog just yet:

As I'm running Windows, on the HT/Multi-threading front I rely pretty much on both Hardcop and PCformat - both say at the moment that because as XP's thread management is crap, dualies won't come into their own until Vista makes its appearance (unless I spend £600 on a cpu). I currently get 80fps @ 1600x1200 on my 21" playing F.E.A.R so I don't need any extra grunt for gaming. Spending £500 now to pretty much stay where I am workwise just does not make sense. I could pick up a Prescott and mobo and probably oc to 4.0 or better and next year spend the big money once OS, applications and chipset instructions are optimised for 64bit multi-threading.

And yes you are right it would not take much for me to spend the bucks and get all the new shiny bells and whistles, but for once I am being pragmatic

 

[equilibrium]

lol

Lol sticking to his guns! Fair enough.

Hope all goes well

DAve