P4C800-E Deluxe Review , please help me understand meaning in relation to non oc stability.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paladin
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Paladin

I would agree with the editor's conclusion: "for a user looking for a very
fast board at stock speed the P4C800-E is great". I have run the board at
stock settings, no overclocking, for a couple of months now, rock solid with
absolutely no issues. By contrast, ths MSI counterpart suffered many issues
on first release, possibly resolved by later bios releases. The Northbridge
fan and voltage questions only become relevant if you are going to
overclock: passive cooling has proved totally adequate for me. (If you were
worried, why not add a more substantial heatsink to the Asus board?)
Contrary to the article, with a little care I found no problems routing
cables for good overall cooling, especially using rounded IDE cables for
optical drives and flat SATA cables for the hard drives. All this in an
Antec case designed for low noise rather than optimal cooling, and despite
the fact that I play games for hours on end running a hot high-end graphics
card and P4 3.0 cpu.
 
I want to get this board but ran across this review and am scared now
because I do not understand enough to make a conclusion. I like the
board because of raid options and passive heatsink.
But the rating for stability scares me.
I do not need overclocking, but must have weeks on end constant
stability.

http://www.thecrucible.ca/reviews/p4c800-e/overclocking.htm
I do not understand what he is getting at when refering to 1.744 volt.

http://www.thecrucible.ca/reviews/p4c800-e/conclusion.htm
look at the stabilty rating.


On another note do you think I would be better off with msi
counterpart board? It has a fan on the heatink. Could I get awa with
taking it off and instaling passive zalman heatsink? Do these mobos
monitor northbridge temp so i could tell if I am running it too hot
from that mod?

Thanks, very worried and I do not have enough experience to put the
review in perspective with comparable boards.

Pleas help.
 
I want to get this board but ran across this review and am scared now
because I do not understand enough to make a conclusion. I like the
board because of raid options and passive heatsink.
But the rating for stability scares me.
I do not need overclocking, but must have weeks on end constant
stability.

http://www.thecrucible.ca/reviews/p4c800-e/overclocking.htm
I do not understand what he is getting at when refering to 1.744 volt.

http://www.thecrucible.ca/reviews/p4c800-e/conclusion.htm
look at the stabilty rating.


On another note do you think I would be better off with msi
counterpart board? It has a fan on the heatink. Could I get awa with
taking it off and instaling passive zalman heatsink? Do these mobos
monitor northbridge temp so i could tell if I am running it too hot
from that mod?

Thanks, very worried and I do not have enough experience to put the
review in perspective with comparable boards.

Pleas help.
Click to expand...

You really have to take reviews like this (actually, all reviews) with
a grain of salt. This one appears to have been done by the typical
gamer/overclocker. These guys are a dime a dozen with little
cookie-cutter hardware sites like this done up in the mold of
Anandtech and Tom's Hardware. They have nearly zero credibility.

Apparently ASUS has found that the passive heat sink on the
northbridge is adequate cooling for the chip at stock speeds, and,
since you _can_ oc the board directly through the BIOS, I would assume
at some degree of overclocking as well. It's certainly not going to
be the ultimate in cooling of the chip, however, and if you wanted to
push the board to its limits you'd want a fan on the heatsink. I like
passive northbridge heatsinks wherever they're applicable. I've had
too many noisy and broken fan issues on past boards with active
cooling. If you want to see instability in a board, fire one up with
a dead fan on a hot chipset cooler.

Basically, they say the board isn't a great overclocker. But IMO that
has little, if any, bearing on the board's stability at standard
speeds. I'll be building one up shortly for myself. Like you, I have
little room for instability issues as this board will be used for my
work 8-12 hours a day.
 
The Northbridge
fan and voltage questions only become relevant if you are going to
overclock: passive cooling has proved totally adequate for me. (If you were
worried, why not add a more substantial heatsink to the Asus board?)
Click to expand...

I am only interested in the northbridge fan issue because I do not
want a fan on it because I do not want to hear fan noise. However, my
selection of i875 boards is limited when I search for only boards with
no northbridge fan. So I asked the question because I was wondering
if I could rip off the fan and heatsink of an msi or a abit board (or
any other manufaturer for that matter) and replace the heatsink with a
larger zalman passive heatsink on the northbridge.

Does this Asus P4C800-E Deluxe have the same size heatsink as say
an abit or msi counterpart? If so is it able to maintain good temp
because of superior wiring and mobo design (runs cooler for same
hypothetical size heatsink on all boards), or do the abit and msi have
fan on heatsink to anticipate the overclocker?
Really the root of the question is , do these boards from different
manufacters , utilizing the same northbridge actually have the same or
different thermal disapation needs at that northbridge?
Why?

What two i875 board manufacturer has the most stable voltages for
overclocking?

I think I read this Asus P4C800-E Deluxe has an automatic 30% oc
setting. If what is implied in the review is correct, then is that
30% oc setting going to be stable?

How is the sound on your board?

Thanks.
 
Steve,

For stability, ongoing & timely bios upgrades, and all other matters I would
choose the Asus over others. (I have a Gigabyte 8knxp which is their
equivalent and the bios support is shocking).

As far as the northbridge is concerned, a manufacturer will consider
extremes of ambient temp. when making the decision to omit a fan. Do you
live in Saharan Africa, the tropics, or outback Australia? If so, you will
probably want (IE your choice) extra cooling regardless of mobo make /
model - just to be safe. Otherwise go with the no northbridge fan option and
consider a Zalman AL/CU heatsink for the CPU - very quiet, effective, and
sturdy to mount. Check first to make sure the Zalman will fit...

- Tim
 
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