Need help on witch chipset/memory type to use with P4.

[Wiggo]

Have a read of this first so ya know what ECC is all about and what's needed for compatibility, http://www.pcguide.com/ref/ram/errECC-c.html ;)
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[The__tweaker]

Ahh, so it's actually slowing the system down a little bit...
That is how i understand it...

[Wiggo]

Yes it does and costs more too plus if the motherboard BIOS doesn't support ECC then it's just a waste of money. :smokin:
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[The__tweaker]

Ok, i have found a really cheap source for pc800 and i really bad would like to know if there is more then 5% difference in performance between 800 and 1066!!

:shoot3:

:p

[Ehhe Yebeb]

No there is not more than a %5 difference between 1066 and 800. If you really want an i850e board i would wait until there is more than three out on the market, at the moment, the intel is the best one stock and the asus one is the best overclocking board, which doesnt say much. Also in some RDRam boards, all slots must be full, that is, you cant have any empty RIMM slots, so you need to either fill them all, or get continuity cards, anyhow, if you are getting RDRam, i suggest buying 2x64 & 2x128MB modules, so you end up with 384MB, that is about all the memory you need running RDRam. Also PC800 performs about equal w/ DDR333, if you do choose PC800, atleast you have a wider range of boards to choose from

[Wiggo]

Here ya go check this out and make up ya own mind if the difference is worth it to ya, http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/i845g-i845e/ ;)
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[The__tweaker]

So how da hell is a man spose to know if i need to fill all the memory slots or not??

[fragman]

Any 850e board you buy *should* come with 2 "continuity modules" that fill the blank spots when you are only using two modules.

[Wiggo]

Well ya don't really need to these days so long as ya get matched pairs of a good enough size for ya to start with then ya have room to expand if the need arises later. ;)
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[Ehhe Yebeb]

If you decide to stick w/ PC1066RDRam, get the Asus for some OC'ing capability, or the intel for stock performance. If you get PC800RDRam then i suggest Abit TH7-II, IMO the best i850 board there is.

[The__tweaker]

I se, i think i will stick with the I850e chipset on the asus mobo and pc1066 memory. I do alot of video encoding, for example i encode mutch avi movies into mpg format. This takes some time with my celeron, how mutch faster is the p4 2,26 in these kind of operations? Is it a big difference?

[The__tweaker]

And when it comes to oc, how high is it possible to oc this kind of processor on the I850E? I'm asking a thousand questions I know but hell, it's the only way to learn... :p

[Ehhe Yebeb]

I also do alot of video encoding, and the P4 is probably better in that application because it supports SSE2, and this speeds up encoding quite a bit. I wouldnt know how high it would OC, you have to buy the stuff and find that out for yourself, nobody can answer that one accurately

[Krakdaek]

Hi ya i know i'm a bit late but i'm working in computer workshop, so i'm building a lot of them. I'll to help you you by giving my ADVICE on those hardware.

For the Motherboard i think you 're right you should go for the Asus P4T533-C which is very good board if you are going to use RDRAM PC1066. The intel P4 with chipset like the i850 or i850e ares very reliable. I have one as a personnal computer. I've already tryed some board with chipset like i845 for DDR or SDRAM, if you are buying real good memory from brand like Crusial, Hynix, Kingston, etc, the reliability of the system will be good too. If you use cheap memory sticks you'll probably get in problems. Don't forget that most of the bugs seen in every versions of Windows are linked to the memory chip. As in every part of hardware you'll buy you always better pay a little more for reliability. The good thing about RDRAM is that "almost" all RDRAM modules are from well known brands, it's easier to manage is you buy good memory chip or not.

I'm using RDRAM because as a rule of thumb, it's always better to use stuff for what they are build. P4 have been build to work RDRAM only, then over the time some company like VIA started to build new chipset for the P4 in order to make the P4 less expensive for the customer, because RDRAM at this time was almost unbuyable!! We.ve got some problems with the first SDRAM and DDR board 'cause the performance was just not there. Now those problem are fixed, if you use good memory chip for sure, the DDR ram reach the 400mhz and almost got the speed on par with the RDRAM PC1066.

The bad thing about PC 1066 is the fact that futur intel board and CPU will be crafted to work with DDR memory. So RDRAM will possibly disapear soon. Now the point is will you go for a system with the best performance and reliability (RDRAM) or for the system who will last for futur architecture (DDR). I would say i've bet on the RDRAM for myself, not sure i've made the right choice, but i'm feeling good with my system as he's usually more reliable then those of my friends with AMD or i845 or SIS or VIA chipset. But it seem that DDR is the futur!

If you buy a Asus P4T533 with RDRAM PC1066, and you are talking about buying a P4 2.2 ghz with 533 FSB. Well this is about the best setup you could get for a relative nice price tho. But you should also consider buying a P4 2.2A ghz ona fsb of 400mhz. Most of the test i've done with the new Northwood core (the A beside the Ghz) are really easy to overclock with no unwanted high heat. Most of the CPU stay at the same temps or almost the same. The Pentium 4 is protected from overheat, unlike the AMD the CPU won't burn if the Heatsink or the fan fail to do his job. for my self i'll buy, a one week or two, a P4 2.2A Ghz at 400MHZ with a P4T533, PC 1066 RDRAM. The FSB can be clocked to 533MHZ since the board and the Memory is made to work at this speed. With a FSB of 533mhz this will set your 2.2ghz Cpu to 2.926 Ghz for the same price!! I've not tryed the 2.2ghz tho but i've tryed with the 1.8A at 2.4 and the 2A ghz at 2.6 ghz and they work flawlessly.

Now you have one more card to play i think.

If you are planning on buying a new Video card i would tell you to buy a V8420 Deluxe from Asus too since it can be over clocked really high, it's a good performance-price videocard. Why the V8420 "Deluxe" it's because the Deluxe version the memory chip are build like the higher class of board from nvidia and can be overclocked higher than other version from Asus because it's 3.3ns memory chip. If you got all the box you want go for the very expensive TI4600 (V8460 chip) or Wait for the upcomming ATI Radeon 9700 128 megs, this board gonna rock like hell and is about to come out in august. I'll buy one as soon as it gonna come out because it gonna be most faster than the Higher GF4, near 50% with all the setting at the maximum (FSAA, Anisotropic, high definition, etc...) and near 20% faster than the Faster GF4 with no FSAA witch is not bad tho.

For the 5% of performance for the 1066 or the 800 RDRAM i would say if you dont overclock your system and dont have the box to buy it go for the 800 but you are buying a new system so the more power you can get from your new system the longer it will last but the higher it will cost! Don't forget one thing about RDRAM it's not really good for overclocking so you better get the faster cause it will work most likely at max 10% FSB (Front side Bus) when overcloked if reliability is important to you. So a 400mhz will go 440mhz and 533 to 584 or somthing like this depending on the brand.

I'm pretty sure 1066 RDRAM that even if RDRAM give you only 5% more performance you'll enjoy it because dont forget 5% is a lot faster when talking in GHZ and overall performance. All in all if you get all those 5% boost with every parts of your computer it could give a 30% more performance according to 6 parts (Motherboard, Soundcard, Videocard, Memory, Hard Drive and CPU) which is very noticable!

For the Divx encoding and video editing you'll see real nice boost in performance and quality with a P4 like the one you wish to buy. I cannot say how much % you'll get more in performance, but i can say With a P4 2.2A OC at 2.9Ghz you'll get over the real time barrer for encoding Divx. So it can help you to see how much it will help.

For the number of slut you need to fill for your Board, i can answer you. If you use Asus Board you need to fill all sluts but nessesary with memory sticks, you can use two memory sticks for the 4 sluts since the board came with two Ghost stick. Those ghost sticks are to close the second RDRAM channel then you can use only 2 sluts with two 128megs sticks, totalizing 256 megs and wait to buy to more 128megs to fill the too other sluts when needed. I was using only 2 128 megs stick on a P4T-E with two ghost(suplyed by Asus with the board) and the system is working well and i got real good performance in Sisoft Sadra on the Memory Benchmark. Today i got my two other 128 megs stick to finaly reach 512megs of RDRAM. As one replyer said 384 megs(2*128+2*64) would be nice but dont forget you lose your 2*64 megs stick when you gonna need to upgrade because there is no more rooms to put them. Today i was saying to myself i will buy 2*64megs to get my 384 need for good performance, since 256 is a bit low for me and for most of the new or upcomming games, but the price was almost the same about 10$ Can which mean about 5$ US so i've choosen the 2*128 megs for sure and by now i'm to 512 megs and the system will be even more faster. Some peoples says that over 384 it's useless, i can say yes it's true in most of the time but it's going to change soon enough, as i got lots of game needing at least 256 and running in a better way with 384 512 and even 768! World War 2 Online can take up to 800 megs of ram and will use them all! For sure if you are using more than 256 you should use at least Windows 2000 or if you want to use more than 386 you should use Windows XP since other OS's going manage the memory but not in a good way. I would recommend Windows XP if you are not playing those stupid game given in Corn Pop box!

Try to change your hardware often as possible to keep the value high. I mean when you got the 2.2ghz and the 2.4ghz came to almost the same price sell your 2 month old CPU to get the new one you'll maybe pay like 25$ more, a few time in the year but it hurt less than paying 1000$ to change most of the system in 1 to 1.5 year. That's how i upgrade my system and work well for me. Dont forget to buy well known brandfor every hardware, if you don't you could create a buttle neck in your system which mean you would have paid for a system you can't get the performance you deserved!

To end this LONG Guide to buying new board, Ram, video card and CPU, i'll say if you can afford the system you dream of,.. don't overclock your system buy the big thing and stay at recommended setting 'til you start dreaming of another system!!

I hope you will see this post and that he might help ya in your futur choice in buying your new system.

So good luck

[The__tweaker]

Yes it really did help me mutch... Thank you!

:)