Novice wants to upgrade to a P4P800 Deluxe and needs advice

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BuckeyeRed

I would like to upgrade my PC on my own if it is not to complex, I
will take any advice get.
I have changed hard drives, memory, burners and other simple things
but I have never attempted
anything like a motherboard and processor.
I currently have a ECS P4VMM motherboard with a Intel p4 1.6
processor.
I have two 256mb 184-pin DIMM DDR PC2100 memory.
I have two 60gig maxtor hard drives and one 200gig western digital. I
run winxp home.
I would like to upgrade the board and processor and need suggestions
on what to get and how difficult it is to set up. Hardware wise I can
do it but if there are jumpers or a lot of changes that have to be
made in the bios I would be shakey at doing it without some advice.
I have been looking at the asus P4P800 Deluxe
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=13-131-450
and it gets good reviews at newegg along with the Intel Pentium 4 /
2.8CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=19-116-161&DEPA=1
is this a good combo? is there anything else I need to order with
them?

Thanks
Tim
 
BuckeyeRed said:
I would like to upgrade my PC on my own if it is not to complex, I
will take any advice get.
I have changed hard drives, memory, burners and other simple things
but I have never attempted
anything like a motherboard and processor.
I currently have a ECS P4VMM motherboard with a Intel p4 1.6
processor.
I have two 256mb 184-pin DIMM DDR PC2100 memory.
I have two 60gig maxtor hard drives and one 200gig western digital. I
run winxp home.
I would like to upgrade the board and processor and need suggestions
on what to get and how difficult it is to set up. Hardware wise I can
do it but if there are jumpers or a lot of changes that have to be
made in the bios I would be shakey at doing it without some advice.
I have been looking at the asus P4P800 Deluxe
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?description=13-131-450
and it gets good reviews at newegg along with the Intel Pentium 4 /
2.8CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB
http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=19-116-161&DEPA=1
is this a good combo? is there anything else I need to order with
them?
Click to expand...
Great combo...I just did the same thing. The set up is trivial.
Literally a plug and play situation. Put it all together properly and
turn it on. Unless you're going to overclock it, there's little worry
about tinkering with the BIOS (software).

You will want to upgrade your memory to DDR400.

Have fun.

Ed Jay (remove M to respond)
 
None of your stuff is really compatible with the new mobos supporting
that cpu, especially the ram.
Bang for the buck, I would try to get a refurbed raid ide mobo from newegg
with a via 333 or 400 chipset. The amd 2400 is only 77$ oem! It'll
almost keep up with that Intel for 172$ and will with that memory.
To really take advantage of the P4P800 Deluxe you'll need to upgrade
memory, power supply/case and hard drives! Figure a grand for starters.
 
This is more in response to some dubious advice, from another "Bob".
While switching to an AMD system might be a good idea, the reasons
presented are not all valid.

(I have a P4P800 non-Deluxe.)

If the OP (original poster) is already running all that stuff on his
current P4 power supply, it may well be adequate for the new system.
(It'll at least be an ATX 12V supply, which is the main requirement.) I
doubt that the case would be a problem.

It would be possible to set the BIOS of a P4P800D to a memory multiplier
that would support the PC2100 DDR, while using an 800 MHz CPU. (It would
show up up in the BIOS settings as 266 MHz. There'd be a performance
loss, but it should work.) However, I recommend buying the PC3200 memory.

The hard drives ought to be fine. Between the 865PE's native IDE
controller and the third-party parallel ATA RAID built onto the board
(which doesn't have to be used for RAID), you'll have lots of IDE
channels. You won't need to use the two SATA ports on the mainboard (and
you'd probably see little performance advantage if you did, in this SATA
generation).

The OP didn't describe his graphics adapter, but the P4P800 requires a
1.5V card. I think that it has protection circuitry that may prevent
damage if a 3.3V card is used, but I believe that the system won't boot
with one.

I suggest downloading and studying the manual for the board:

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/sock478/p4p800/e1323_p4p800_deluxe.pdf

There may not be much point in buying the Asus board over the equivalent
Intel product if there is no intention to overclock.

If you feel lucky, get the P4 2.6c instead of the 2.8c, overclock it to
3.25 GHz. (Raise the CPU core voltage a tad - an 0.025V increase will
make it the same as a retail 3.2 GHz P4.) The price difference will
partially make up for having to buy PC3200 DDR. (Run that at a 5:4
multiplier to keep it in-spec, and lock the AGP/PCI frequencies at 66/33
MHz.) PC4000 is coming on the market, but I believe that none of it is
certified at that speed.

But, most important-

Have fun.

Bob Knowlden

Address may be altered to avoid spam. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
First, be careful. Buy an anti-static strap and educate yourself about
the sort of thing you're going to be doing. It's not rocket science to
swap out a motherboard, but nobody likes it when they break something
out of carelessness.

A quick google for "changing motherboard guide" gave me a few links that
might be of interest:

http://www.directron.com/mbinstallation.html
http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/how-to-guides/35_1.html
http://www.theeldergeek.com/replace_motherboard.htm

It's a fine combination. A few notes:

- It's generally a good idea to check your RAM before embarking on an
adventure like this. Go to www.memtest86.org and leave it running
overnight. If there are no errors in the morning, you're good to go.
If there are errors, isolate them to a single DIMM and get the DIMM
replaced.

- If you buy the OEM CPU, you'll need a heatsink and fan. The retail
CPU will come with a heatsink and fan in the box. The retail box also
has a longer warranty, so it's a better deal in general if you're not
planning on using an aftermarket heatsink (people who like very quiet
PCs tend to dislike the Intel retail fans).

- You can continue to use your old RAM, but you will see a modest
performance increase by upgrading to PC3200. If you don't play games
and obsess about frame rate counts, it will make little difference to
you.

- Your current motherboard is microATX. The P4P800 Deluxe is not. Make
sure your case can handle the larger board.

- Your current motherboard uses a VIA chipset, while the P4P800 has an
Intel chipset. That means that XP may not boot when you swap boards,
because the IDE drivers are not compatible. There's an easy fix for
this: boot from your XP Home CD and select the repair option. This
will go through the hardware redetection process and fix things up.
You'll have to reinstall Service Packs, patches and OEM device drivers
after the repair, but it sure beats a clean install.

Good luck...
You'll need pc3200 memory for 800 fsb cpu.
Click to expand...

Not so. I have a P4P800 running a P4 2.4C at 800MHz FSB with PC2100 at
133MHz DDR.

Max Attar Feingold
maf6 at cornell dot edu
http://almonaster.sourceforge.net/mfeingol/

Not speaking for my employer
 
We just built two "top of the line" asus boxes with dual channel
ram, one with a AMD 3200, another with a P4-3000.
Neither was as fast as I had hoped, systems built at the "sweet spot",
with amd 2400's & 2600's have given much better value.
Both of the top of the line boxes used striped raptors, they
were fast, still don't see all the "fuss" about HT tho. That box locks up
more than any of them.
We build a lot of computers. Last 20 or so have been AMD,
since our amd xp 1700 ran circles around the P4 1600/rambus.
Impressed with a benchmark we gave the P4 another chance.
My amd 2600/333 running single channel 333 cas 2 ram on a via 400 asus board
gives the "top of the line" combos a run for their money
at much less than half the cost.
I've got $1500 tied up in two boxes linked with a kvm switch and they
can multitask better than any single cpu box and I can burn 2, 4x dvd's at a
time, vbg. What's dubious is spending $300 to upgrade a computer and still
have "bottlenecks" to slow you down.
 
Just built a system with the Asus P4C800E with 2.8 P4 800 and dual 3200 ram
2 x 512
It is a quality build in all components and cost was high.

This was the first Intel system I have built, always been an AMD man.

To best compare AMD to Intel is Unleaded to Diesel.

I needed the torque not so much the speed and the Intel is my choice for
that. I have set up with Digital TV PCI card, record TV etc, and runs a
quality sound system ( using a 7.1 M-Audio soundcard), basically the system
is the centre/brains of my entertainment system.

It worked first go and only grip was the ATI drivers that come with the
9600pro videocard. Once updated all ok. Had always been a NVIDIA man.

Not one lockup but I am not a gamer so I don't push the hardware only when
video editing which is a good test for any build.

Could not recommend this motherboard enough, only the new 64 bit stable
machines of the future will offer better.
Provided you use quality components consider the P4C800E.
 
My buddy has been pushing the envelope with the P4 3000 and
the Asus P4C800E in regards to multitasking/hyperthreading!
He's kinda wondering why he spent so much money!
Video editing is heavily dependent upon cpu raw speed and
memory bandwidth. Intel leads there for now, the amd64 is changing
that slowly. The Barton's performance ratings were exaggerated.
I still think the early 8KB/L1 P4's were POS's.
 
I like the idea of saving money so I would consider the amd. What
board exactly would you recommend? And would I notice a difference
over my current setup?
I have no video board, I use the one on my current board, would I need
to get one? If so what is a cheap recommendation?

Thanks for everyones help and advise

Tim
 
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