Best Asus Motherboard for new build

  • Thread starter Thread starter Barry Watzman
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Barry Watzman

What's the best Asus motherboard for a new build? Assume an Intel
Pentium 4 CPU, and 8x AGP video, not looking for PCI express at this time.
 
On a budget?
Take a look at the Asus P4S800D-E Deluxe. Socket 478, hyperthreading,
SATA. Very stable - swapped in with no problem. Does a lot the big boys
do for less bucks.

Good luck
 
I was fond of my P4P800 (no suffixes). If I was building a new P4 system,
the P4C800 (875 chipset, rather than the 865PE) might be my choice, although
it costs more.

I haven't used a non-Intel P4 chipset since my first P4 machine, which was a
P4S533 (SiS chipset). I have read complaints about non-Intel mainboards, but
the P4S533 was reliable for me.

If you want an LGA775 board with an AGP graphics slot and DDR memory rather
than DDR2, the P5P800 (865PE chipset) might be a good choice. I have zero
experience with it, though. It looks like a transitional product, rather
than a leading-edge one, so you may have trouble finding a review. Newegg
has it for $99US (+$5 shipping), so the risk isn't too great.

My own transitional system uses an Asus A8V Deluxe mainboard (Via K6T800 Pro
chipset) with an Athlon64 3500+ (Socket 939) CPU. It seems to be a fine,
fast system, although not enough faster than the previous system (P4 2.6c @
3.25 GHz, on the P4P800 with PC3200 DDR at 5:4) to be life-altering.

HTH.

Address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
Barry,

A couple of months ago, I built my first do-it-yourself system:

ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe
Pentium 4, 3.0C with Zalman 7000a-AlCu CPU cooling fan
2GB Mushin PC3200 Blue RAM -- 4-512MB DIMMS
Antec case SLK3700-BQE with Antec 350w PSU Model SL350S
Extra (2nd) Antec case fan
Matrox G450 video card-for primary monitor
Matrox Millennium PCI video card-for second monitor
2-WD 120GB HD; 1-SATA; 1-EIDE
Plextor DVD-RW/CD-RW; floppy
Windows XP Home SP2

The system works flawlessly. It's fast, very quiet, runs very cool (temps)
and 100% stable.

John
 
What's the best Asus motherboard for a new build? Assume an Intel
Pentium 4 CPU, and 8x AGP video, not looking for PCI express at this time.
Click to expand...

How about you tell us what you are going to be doing with the system so
that we can help you with suggestions. No one here can give you a
recommendation unless they know what you do with the system.
 
If you want the fastest, get the P5AD2, but be prepared to buy DDR2 ram and a
PCI Express video card. AGP and older non 240 pin DDR won't work. Great board
but mucho $$ invested.
 
Budget is not the issue and I'm only willing to consider cards with
Intel chipsets.
 
Assume high-end gaming. Money is always an object, but this isn't a
"budget" system. Add to the requirements, "Intel chipset". I'm asking
this question for someone else. The thinking was P4C800E-deluxe, but I
want to know if there's a better choice. Also, it must support socket
478 and it must support, for now, a 533 MHz FSB (an existing CPU is
being used, for the time being, although it may be replaced later).
 
Assume high-end gaming. Money is always an object, but this isn't a
"budget" system. Add to the requirements, "Intel chipset". I'm asking
this question for someone else. The thinking was P4C800E-deluxe, but I
want to know if there's a better choice. Also, it must support socket
478 and it must support, for now, a 533 MHz FSB (an existing CPU is
being used, for the time being, although it may be replaced later).
Click to expand...

Have you considered a DUAL CPU board? While the second CPU does not
benefit many games, it does allow the OS to off-load many tasks that are
running in the background while playing games, and that does make the
system faster.

I was running a Dual Celeron 500Mhz system for a long time playing
Counter Strike at 90FPS with a quality video card under Windows 2000.

For my own game machine I use a ASUS PC-DL Deluxe motherboard with Dual
Xeon 2.8ghz CPU's and Windows XP Professional - I have a 9200SE video
card and get about 90FPS all the time when playing CS (it's the only
game I play on-line).

I also use the same machine for designing networks, web sites,
applications, and even run MS SQL 2000 on it.

If games are your only consideration, there are a lot of things other
than the motherboard you need to consider - like the Video Card and how
it interacts with the specific games you play. Not all cards perform as
well with different games.
 
Barry, if you aren't going to go dual cpu, then check out the P4C800-E
Deluxe. It has handled everything that I have thrown at it without a
hiccup. Currently running a 2.4c at 265mhz FSB and 4200 ram running at 1:1.
Stable and a plethora of on-board goodies. Will run any of the current
chips with the latest bios. I am thinking about pulling my 2.6c out of my
other box to see what it will do. HTH.
Silvertip
 
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