Have a Pentium D, Need a MotherBoard.

fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
edited February 2006 in Hardware
I won a Pentium D 820 off ebay for a pretty good price, so now I need a mobo. What would you guys suggest?
This appears to have excellent reviews http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813121286
I am open to any suggestions. Im guessing Asus or MSI will be my choice, as I hear ABIT aint what it used to be.

Should I be able to run the 820 at 1066 fsb since the description says it has 800 mhz fsb?
Also, whats the deal with needing ddr 667 to run a fsb of 1066? Shouldnt I only need ddr 533? It seems that for many motherboards, the "DDR2 standard" is ddr 667, but the boards only supports fsb of 800/1066.

Comments

  • edited January 2006
    Do you eat sugar by the handfull??

    For overclocking you can run the ram at 1-1 so to hit the 1066 fsb if the divider is 1-1 the ram will be at 533.

    The ASus 955X based mobo is really nice, you might look into it. A buddy of mine has one and he's hitting 3860 with his D 820 on air with his. He's switching it to water soon to try to hit more, right now his Vcore is 1.4V
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    If you want high-priced stability and quality, yes, get an Intel board. If you want to go overclocking the Asus P5WD2 is the first and last word. The Intel boards are first rate quality, easy to set up, and rock solid, but are overpriced for what you get.

    What are your goals? Hope it includes folding. The 820 is superb for that. Do you want to overclock? slightly? moderate? heavy? Look at my OC in signature. That's with a Asus' step down from the P5WD2. If you aren't interested in overclcocking, or just interested in moderate overclocking, you can get a very good board from Asus or MSI (stable, smooth, and easy to set up) for $100 or less.

    Concerning the D820. Don't even think about more than light overclocking without very good air cooling. Is your CPU retail boxed, with the Intel cooler? They are good coolers, but not for high performance.
  • edited January 2006
    I'd consider a 1+ GHz OC to be more than light to moderate...54C load temps at 3.86Ghz on an 820 D with the factory Intel air cooler is really not shabby at all.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    I'd consider a 1+ GHz OC to be more than light to moderate...54C load temps at 3.86Ghz on an 820 D with the factory Intel air cooler
    I wouldn't consider that to be a light or moderate OC either! Reportedly, some people have reached that level on stock air, but I find it really hard to believe.

    But you've made me think. I should modify my advise to Fudgam: Don't be surprised if your overclocking is limited by the Intel retail cooler. But then, there are reports of very high overclocks with the stock cooler. And to clarify, you certainly can do some decent overclocking without the expense of the pricey Asus P5WD2. I've done moderate overclcocking with both the Asus P5PL2 and the MSI 945P Neo-F.
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited January 2006
    I never understood ram-cpu ratio. I always just left mine alone on my nf7-s.

    The cpu is OEM, so no stock HSF. I will need to buy a HSF seperate. I have no plans for water cooling. Any recomendations for HSF?

    Id say im interested in light-moderate overclocking. I dont mind doing guess & check with ram speeds, voltage, multipliers and all that good stuff. The only performance this pc will be doing is games. No video editing or CAD or anything like that.
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited January 2006
    The MSI 945P Neo-F might be my answer. Relatively cheap, overclocks ok and if its a stable, reliable board Ill get that.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    The Neo-F is a good choice. It's a mediocre overclock, but you still should get several hundred extra MHz out of that CPU with MSI board. I would advise though, that if you do select that board, don't use the MSI software overclocking garbage. It has a few side effects. I mean, it's decent, but you're more likely to get a stable OC from BIOS settings.

    Heatsink? If you aren't going for OC glory, then there's a whole bunch of heatsinks that would work well. I guess you'd just want to set a price goal on heatsinks and go from there. For heavy overclocking, I'd suggest the TT Big Typhoon. So I guess bump it down a notch and you'll have plenty of thermal headroom at a good price. I really hadn't looked for moderate cooling potential with my setup, except for the first couple weeks. At that time I ran a Zalman 7000, which still allowed a light overclock.
    The MSI 945P Neo-F might be my answer. Relatively cheap, overclocks ok and if its a stable, reliable board Ill get that.
    It's very stable. I'm not running mine because I killed it. I'm not accustomed to a carpeted computer room, as is my office now at home, and I've killed more than one component due to static shock. If you do get the MSI, when you are setting it up, I'd remove both the northbridge and southbridge heatsinks, clean them off and apply some quality thermal paste at the same time you install the CPU. Both the NB and SB on that board get hot.
  • edited January 2006
    If you are going to run an 820 and you don't have the stock Intel heatsink, I would say to invest in the Big Typhoon myself. Not only will you have a premium hsf there, but you will also have a low noise solution too. And I don't consider around $50 to be too much for a good cooling solution either. That is one Thermaltake heatsink that actually is every bit as good as, if not better than the rest of the premium DC capable Intel air coolers out there.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2006
    Mudd's got a good point. The Big Typhoon is simply awesome. And icing on the cake is that it is nearly silent with the stock fan. There may be only one or two other heatsinks that can match it's performance. I'm not aware of any air cooling that can outperform it. I have never been as impressed with any heatsink as I am with the Big Typhoon, and I've played with many heatsink/fan combinations.
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited February 2006
    Will any 775 heatsink fit on any 775 processor?
    Im looking through socet 775 heatsinks on newegg, and many say they are for pentium 4's, but not specifically Pentium D procs. Does it matter?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    If the specifications say "Socket 775" then it will work. Do you still need a motherboard? I should have one or two available in three or four weeks. (If interested, please PM me). Also, RFB has an Intel Socket 775 board for sale in the Deal Depot and Trading Post. If a heatsink writeup states it's for Pentium 4, but does not state Pentium D, it probably just means that it wasn't tested with PD or that it's thermal dissipation level is not recommended for Pentium D. A Pentium D puts out more heat under load than a Prescott single core. But any Socket 775 heatsink should fit a 775 motherboard with a Pentium D.

    What heatsinks have you found that interest you?
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited February 2006
    I already ordered the MSI 945P Neo-F. Newegg had one refurbished so I snagged the deal.

    Artic Cooling Freezer 7 looks to be a good cooler and doesnt cost too much. $50 is too much for me to spend on a HSF.
  • reelbigfishreelbigfish Boston, MA Member
    edited February 2006
    Leo, unfortunatly I put mine on ebay so it is no longer available.

    That is a good choice on the mobo. I have had good experiences with MSI.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    Yes, the 945P Neo-F is a really smooth board. You can do just about any tweak you wish. If you push too far, it automatically reboots giving you the opportunty to change settings in the BIOS. I worked that board over very, very hard and never had to reset the CMOS jumper. As for overclocking, it's good, but not great. Do not install the software overclocking garbage. It works, but might destabilize other programs. Also, you won't get nearly the overclock out of the software that you might with the BIOS. I also recommend that you immediately pull off the north and southbridge's heatsinks and apply thermal paste. I would also mount a fan on the northbridge. The 945P northbridge gets rather hot under load and overclcocking. Unless you are going for stellar hights with that board, you should be very happy with it.

    Do install the MSI updating software. It works well for BIOS and chipset driver updating.
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited February 2006
    Sounds like I made a good choice then. Im not a huge overclocker.

    Could you explain the options for cpu:fsb ratios? I noticed in another thread you mentioned that the only option were 3:4 and 4:5 (or somethign along those lines). What does this mean? If the multiplier is 14 and the FSB is 200, what does the 3:4 ratio do?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    If the CPU-FSB ratio is 1:1, for every megahertz step up on the FSB, the DRAM will follow by one step (one MHz). By applying a ratio, the DRAM starts at a lower clock, allowing more memory headroom for overclocking. For instance, if you run the system at default with DDR2 667 (333MHz DDR), your CPU FSB will be 200MHz (800 "quad pumped") and the DRAM 333. If your DRAM is only capable of say 350, that only gives you 17MHz overclock for the FSB. If you set a ratio, you can start your overclocking with the CPU FSB at 200 and the DDR an much lower than the default, leaving you much more room for system overclock. The reasons the ratios are available, Intel and AMD boards, is that CPUs usually have much more FSB headroom than the RAM will have for upward adjustments
    . Sounds like I made a good choice then. Im not a huge overclocker.
    I don't think you could find a better quality/performance compromise for the money.
  • fudgamfudgam Upstate New York
    edited February 2006
    What is the default ratio?
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited February 2006
    1:1

    -- For DDR2 533 that would be CPU FSB 200MHz (800MHz quad pumped) - DRAM 533MHz
    -- For DDR2 667 that would be CPU FSB 200Hz - DRAM 667 MHz

    If you were to apply a 4:3 ration using DDR2 667, your starting point with the CPU at default would be CPU FSB 200MHz - DRAM 500MHz. See, that would leave 167MHz overclocking on the FSB before you even hit the stock speed of your DRAM. At default speed of the CPU FSB, using a 5:4 ratio with DDR2 667, your starting point would be 533MHz. Same principile applies with DDR2 533. Remember though, CPU Z will read your FSB in quad pumped, stock at 800MHz, but will read your DRAM as straight (not DDR), stock at 266 or 333, which is DDR2 533 and 667 respectively.
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