Gigabyte

witenoiz

I am going to get a p4 2.8c GHz 800 Mhz cpu.... It was suggested that I put this on a Gigabyte Ga-8IPE 1000-L mb - but I read some bad reviews on that board. Any suggestions ( Fast ) I like to do things yesterday. This is my first step into Hyper-Threading and I am a little lost. I will get 2 sticks of 512Mb DDR PC3200 from Crucial and probably a 128 mg Video card. I am not a gamer so any suggestions on an inexpansive card would help too. The motherboard is my problem - I kind of like MSI, but I have had good luck with Asus and Abit. Jack

Thrax

If you're getting a P4, it's practically inexcusable to get anything but an Abit IS7, IC7-G, or IC7-MAX3 as your budget dictates.

TheBaron

one of the asus boards would be great too (especially the P4C800-E)

Al_Capown

As for the video card a Radeon 9000, 8500, 9100 or Geforce 4 ti4200 would do.

GnomeWizardd

ive had 4 gigabyte boards and all of them had to rma'ed I got a brand new one back from rma and i donated it tothe SMX fund cause it was a pos! Abit and MSI

primesuspect

Let me translate Gnome's post into English for you:

My good sir, I have owned no fewer than four motherboards made by Gigabyte. At various points, I've had to return them to the manufacturer for being defective. In fact, one of the replacement boards that I received has been donated to the SMx folding project, since I feel that I no longer have any use for it. Hopefully it will be a solid contribution to the SMx project.

//translator's footnote: I'm having trouble translating that last bit "Abit and MSI".. your guess is as good as mine

madmat

I'd stay away from the IS7, I'm living with that board and it's got more than a few flaws, first is that with my Corsair XMS PC3700 if I run the vdimm above 2.6v I get memory errors out the wazoo, and yes, that's at 233fsb down to 200fsb at the cas settings spec'ed by corsair, if I lower the vdimm to 2.6v the errors go away which leads me to believe that there's bad power management in the board.
Second is a problem I just discovered the other day, when I run the fsb at 233 with the ram set to 1-1 with the fsb I get horendous artifacts in games...I've tried a full reload, different drivers, de-clocking the vid-card and they don't cure it, the only thing that does is setting the divider to 5-4. With the memory divider set to 5-4 I can run the fsb at 255 and not have any artifacts but I get lower overall framerates due to running the ram at such loose cas settings at a low speed (the lowest cas settings I can muster at 200-208 mem speed are 2.5-4-4-7) and the hacked P.A.T. that Abit's worked into the IS7 won't work with higher cas ram.
Do yourself a favor and go for the IC7 or the more upcscale versions, you'll be happier with them in the long run.
-edit- If you see errors or typos it's not me, I'm having trouble with my wireless keyboard-Matt

MediaMan

From da guy who has worked with 6 or 7 Gigabyte boards. I found the 8IPE series to be a bit finicky with memory. It may be more of an INTEL chipset problem than the motherboard itself. The boards with the separate DPS power module are hit and miss with power supplies. 5 power supplies run the 7KNNXP fine but the Zalman PSU didn't like the motherboard with the DPS module in place.

The ABIT IC7-MAX3 is a fine, fine board. Be aware that it has no COM ports so if you need to hook up a dongle...or printer to an old COMM port you is outta luck. Found that out with Softimage.

The IC7-G is less in price but more or less the same board as the IC7-Max3. Again...another mighty fine board.


Hyperthreading in layman's terms is where the processor acts like it's two processors. It's a pretend dual processor setup. The real benefit with hyperthreading is with SMP aware programs such as After Effects but Hyperthreading won't deliver a phenomenal boost across all benchmarks. It "ain't all that and a bag of chips" so keep your expectations in perspective.

Course...there is always the way we suggest which is AMD 'cause it's much better.

GnomeWizardd

* Start British Accent*
Prime My good Sir! I thank you for translating my rushed responce. I was in a hurry to visit the girlfriend for some cuddling and a movie. The Last tid Bit of my Rushed responce was a reference that my best luck as of lately ( last 3 years ) Have been Abit and MSI boards. Those two manufactures would definatly serve this young chap well. Good day sir!
* end British accent *

muddocktor

If you don't mind taking a little advice from someone who just built his first P4 HT machine at Christmas (Santa was real good to me:D ), I would say for you to get the IC7, IC7-G or IC7 Max3, which ever your budget can afford. My IC7-G is pretty darn good, but the Max3 will let you put more vdimm to the memory. It's also quite a bit more expensive than my board too. To get the best overclocking 2.8 proc, get the m0 stepping, which is based on the Xeon core with only 512k L2 cache being active. They also use a new bonding process between the heatspreader and core which transfers the heat better too. The only place I know of for sure that is selling m0 2.8's is www.azzo.com , where I bought my m0 2.4 from. They are expensive, but you get a hand-picked s-spec proc from them too, guarranteed to be a m0 stepping proc and they are good folks to deal with. For your memory, if you want to overclock it high and run a 1:1 ratio on the memory, you need to get some high quality pc4000 ddr because you should be able to get the fsb up to or past 250 fsb with an m0 stepping proc. I've had my 2.4 to around 3.55 but I wasn't totally stable there, probably because I was at 295 fsb and haven't done any mods to the board. With a 2.8, you shouldn't have that problem though as you won't be getting near that fsb speed unless you get a 1 in a million proc.

For a vid card, get you a ATI 9600 so that you will have decent gaming ability with a great picture in regular use.

One other thing about the HT P4's: they kick serious butt in folding. My machine has been up since Christmas and EM3 says it's turned in around 7000 points worth of work since I got it up and running.


EDIT: Be sure to buy premium ddr if you plan to overclock, I can't stress that enough. Corsair XMS4000 or Mushkin Level2 pc4000 for best performance in 1:1 fsb/mem setting. I doubt that the Crucial or Geil will let you go too far overclocking.

witenoiz

Ok thanks for all the help - Had some serious comments and I read lots of reviews and ordered the Abit IS7 Of course in talking to some of my tech friends here in the KC area I have made a serious mistake :woowoo: They had never seen a mother board mounted on plywood before either At least if this dude doesn't work I can RMA it to NewEgg - but I will need some help with the OC !!! Kingston level 2 tech told me for the memory I am buying I will need a 450 to 475 PS ( I bought a 480 today ) It's an Axio for $45.00 but I like the dual fans and what the heck - I can always replace it. My experiance has only been with Athlon and the chip of choice for me is the Barton 2500 ( I think I have 8 of them ) This is not a gamer I am building - I do some spreadsheets and checkbook stuff and a web page on it. So It runs until it wants to reboot itself ( Oh!! It's an Azza YIKES! ) and it is going to the basement on plywood till it dies. I agree with the AMD for F@H but if I can run 2 instances at once and still have a great box that's what I'm after. :birthday: Young chap indeed Gnomewizard - 2 months with Short Media and you got me spending more of my wifes money. Oh, the memory I bought?? Kingston DDR 512MB|PC3700 Hyperx - k RT 2 - so that's 1 gig We gonna Rock & Roll :Rocker: Jack

GnomeWizardd

*Accent* Now Witenoiz My good Man how Did I Get you to spend more your thy lovely wifes Dollars? *END Accent*

GnomeWizardd

Oh and tell those wankers to piss off! You made a wise choice young padwan!

witenoiz

Well - I got the Abit IS7 this afternoon - Installed Win XP Pro and the Drivers and when I had F@H going I was working on this my 2000 box trying to get FahStats to recognize the 2 new instances on the new box and all of a sudden the BSOD and Windows told me corrupt windows root need to replace the \system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Turned off the box - rebooted with the XP PRO in the CD - 3 LONG LOUD BEEPS later it is history. Looks like it's going to be an RMA to NewEgg. This is stock - no OC - just getting it set up. *&@#!|\&** And no It didn't/isn't hot and I couldn't smell any burning. NewEgg is closed for the night - any ideas? Jack

muddocktor

Man, that sucks. I hope the refurb IS7 I have coming doesn't do this to me too. My IC7-G has been solid as a rock, as well as my NF7-S.

I guess that you just got a board with a component that failed under load. Usually with electronic components most failures happen within the first few days as everything is stressed for the first time though. Newegg is good folks to deal with and you can apply for your rma online with them too. Just go through the rma process tonight and you should be able to box her up and send it out first thing in the morning.

EDIT: One good thing though is that you've already installed XP so the replacement mobo should be a drop in and you're back up and running.:)

witenoiz

Muddocktor - It is in the box and I have the proper paperwork! On it's way in the morning, I have another board I was going to get and will buy it on the way home. I am going to be hyper-threading by nightfall or I will be hyper (fill in the appropriate word here - _________)! Jack