P4C800-E or P4P800-E

[Martin Hirsch]

I'm looking for either a 875p or 865PE chipset since these are the last two
to support AGP. Can't really tell the difference between these two chipsets
but have decided on either of these boards.

What is the difference between these two boards because there is a $60-$70
price difference? Is one much more superior than the other to warrant the
price difference? Spec wise they appear to be identical. Am I missing
something.

Also is one more reliable than the other?

Thanks for any pointers.

 

[Paul]

I'm looking for either a 875p or 865PE chipset since these are the last two
to support AGP. Can't really tell the difference between these two chipsets
but have decided on either of these boards.

What is the difference between these two boards because there is a $60-$70
price difference? Is one much more superior than the other to warrant the
price difference? Spec wise they appear to be identical. Am I missing
something.

Also is one more reliable than the other?

Thanks for any pointers.

This is one of the differences:

http://abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=62275&highlight=video+artifacts

If you are an avid overclocker, the P4C800-E is the board to get.

The P4C800-E has its gigabit ethernet connected to the CSA bus, so
LAN traffic doesn't load down the PCI bus. That helps in server
applications.

Don't know what to tell you on reliability. You need to know how many
dead boards there are, out of how many total boards shipped, and that
is hard to estimate from just USENET postings.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Marius]

Here's my two cents (Canadian that is);

I own both boards the P4C800-E Deluxe is mine, the P4P800 Deluxe a recent
upgrade to my son's old computer
(called the Doom 3 incident) both with Northwood CPU first with a 3.2GHz
second with 3 Ghz,
none of the boards are overclocked.
The difference here in Canada between them was about $70.
Performance wise the first one a bit faster due to the fact I have 1Ghz of
RAM compared with 512MB
and I also run a RAID on P4C800.
Both boards are very stable.
Now so far the P4C800-E has the following problems:
1. Firewire on board is not working properly even after installing the
Hotfix from Microsoft
I ended up using the firewire port from the Audigy 2 with my Digital
camcorder, the
P4P800 does not have this issue.
2. I have lost the RAID after upgrading the BIOS (P4C800) to 1016, and I
had to go back to 1014.

Technical support from Asus equals 0 not even an answer on my e-mails.

I hope this helps,
Marius

 

[John Blaustein]

Martin,

At the beginning of June, I started to research building my own PC for the
first time and spent a lot of time reading posts on this NG. I settled on
the same two boards as the top choices, and ended up with the P4P800-E
Deluxe. I could not be happier. I am running a P4, 3.0C CPU, 2GB Mushkin
RAM, two WD HDs, Matrox G450 video. I bought a Zalman 7000 AlCu cooling
fan (highly recommend) and an Antec SLK3700-BQE case (highly recommend).

You can search back in this NG for posts similar to yours, but below are
several comments I bookmarked since mid-June:

John


From a test comparison done by PC Quest ...

865 vs. 875
The 875 is the clear performance king here but the edge
it has over the 865 is only 1-4 %, which is not very great.

This might also be of interest ...

The 875 and 865 also support the latest Serial ATA drives
with the 875 also having support for SATA Raid-0 (striping).



A vendor who probably would prefer to remain anonymous told me that he got
more returns of the P4C... boards than he did of the P4P... boards; also
that the P4P.. had fewer compatibility problems. I've got a P4P800-E Deluxe
and an original P4P800-E running here with absolutely no trouble.


Too bad he's not willing to stand up and be counted.

The increased return rate could be a zillion things -- dicey rev0 boards,
extremists unhappy with overclocking performance, and so on. Or it could be
total BS, and that he just makes better margins on P4Ps and wants to sell
more of them.



Well, I'd say the P4P800-E Deluxe is the best bang for the buck.

Well, I'd say the P4P800-E Deluxe is the best bang for the buck.

I second that motion., rev 1.02 board here. 2.8C @ 3Ghz, no sweath,
FSB 881Mhz rock solid...Temperature barely higher under torture tests, than
stock speed.
Kingston VALUE RAM, 2x512KB sticks. Win2k. ATI radeon 9800Pro.
Original BIOS works wonders; I read an upgrade to 1016 would get better RAID
features.

I would not think the P4C800-E delux is much different in terms of quality.
P4C buyers are often more demanding on their setup and push the hardware to
the limits
with RAID arrays and high-end 3D cards. Worst are those who upgrade the BIOS
with betas,
or hoping to get 1 fps more... Even worst are those who play with
overclocking without
doing stability tests, and temperature measurments.
Think also that P4C800 healthy owners are tempted to put a HOT P4E under the
hood and
don't realize the power requirements and higher ventilation standards.
A big P4C800E with raid setup and P4E would certainly call for a 450+ PSU.
Hence, more complaints potential.

Never been happier since Intel BX440 chipset. Die VIA die.

Interesting, I have a 2 month old P4C and have run into compatibility
problems with an internal modem and Winfax Pro.

I replaced the modem with an old high quality USR.

But then I ran into compatibility problems with the drivers for my
Handspring Visor and syncing often led to the BSOD. Now I turn off
WinFax Pro before I sync and it works without a BSOD about 80% of the
time.

I have wondered whether this motherboard is...shall we say..."finicky"?

The problems you mention sound like application / device driver issues and
nothing to do with the board itself. You would probably have the same issues
regardless of mobo if you achieved the same software setup. Check for
application s/w updates, run sigverif.exe and check to see what unsigned
drivers are there and for each unsigned driver look for an update. WinFax is
possibly the victim too, not part of the cause.

For internal modes, you are best to avoid what are often called
'win-modems'. These have chunks of the modem functionality (DSP stuff)
implemented in the device driver so are much more complex software wise and
are more prone to run-time bugs. They are not recommended. Check for updates
for the driver if you are ever going to put it back in.

I returned the modem and went back to my old hardware one.

But the software/device driver issue confuses me because I had the same
software running on my previous Win XP machine (a Dell 8200), without
any conflicts and without any BSODs.

I know that the device driver for the Palm (really a Handspring Visor),
is somewhat out of date although it is the newest available and is
supposedly compatible with XP. Palm bought Handspring and only made one
last update to the driver software.

But frankly, I'd rather have it be the Palm/Handspring software and
device drivers rather than the motherboard - so in fact, even though
it's a nuisance, it will pass into history way before my new computer
does - or at least I hope so



I have both of them. The performance is virtually identical. I run the p4c
as a
w2k server (ecc memory etc) and the p4p as on xp. I think the p4p is a much
better deal and unless you really think you need ecc memory I'd go that
route.
The promise controller on the p4c sucks anyway I have never been able to get
stable drivers for it. I actually disabled it and added an plug-in promise
controller card so that I could add more drives to the server. I lost a ton
of
data on that crap-ball built in promise controller. The SATA raid controller
on
the p4p is fine. I have 2 160g WD drives on it and have not had a single
problem. I bought the p4c-delux when they first came out and wasn't all that
impressed. My p4p is the bottom end version and I'm pretty happy with the
performance. I'd keep the extra few coins in my pocket and go with the 865
board
but you can't go wrong either way.

MY friend and I have comparibles systems withthe exception of the
motherboards, his being a P4C, but his system seems to rum faster, is there
much of a performance difference between the boards?

The Northbridge chips on the two boards are identical. One difference
might be whether the PAT/MAM feature is enabled on the two boards,
but Asus uses a trick to allow it to run on both boards. Consult
abxzone.com forums search engine, using the search term "ctiaw",
to find some threads on experiments done on that feature. (ctiaw
is a program that can display the status of that feature.) I doubt
the difference is measurable at the application level though (i.e.
it won't make the desktop feel snappy or anything).

http://abxzone.com/forums/search.php
http://abxzone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=49613&highlight=ctiaw

There are so many Windows tweaks that could make the difference.
If your friend knows how to prune the garbage out of the OS, that
would help.

Are you using different video cards ? Is his video card overclocked
via a tweaker program ?

A reason for buying a P4C800, is if you want to overclock in
1:1 mode to a high overclock. The P4P800 will develop video artifacts
if you do this, while the P4C800 won't. This has to do with the
binning or sorting of chips at Intel. The best chips are used
as 875's and the second best become 865's. The package the chips
are put in is different (has a different number of pins), but
that doesn't change the fact that they are the same die. With the
exception of overclock potential in 1:1 mode, simply compare the
products for the included peripherals, to make a purchase decision.
If your dream is to go to FSB1000 and use two sticks of PC4000+
memory in dual channel mode, then a P4C800 board is the one to use.


The P4c800 is ~5% faster than your board. (P4P800-E dlx)

 

[John Blaustein]

Additional comment....

I set the BIOS on my P4P800-E Deluxe for 10% overclocking and have had no
problems.

John

 

[Art Simpson]

John Blaustein wrote in message ...

Additional comment....

I set the BIOS on my P4P800-E Deluxe for 10% overclocking and have had no
problems.

John

I totally agree with John's research and results.
I did a similar quest. Ended-up with a P4P800Edeluxe and could not be happier.
Not that a P4C800Edelux is any less for that matter.

One of the only reason I see someone need a P4C800xxx is for the ECC, which
is something of great importance for professionnal users like, Medical research,
security, finance or; Whatever field that implies you can spend extra $$ for ECC.

I run the original BIOS, and can easily overclock the CPU from 2.8Ghz to 3Ghz,
on Kingston Value RAM (approved on the ASUS memory list).
One comment to John Blaustein though... Overclocking 10% from the BIOS is
the easy way; but that should result in decreasing your RAM performance...
I did my overclock manually, (CPU 220Mhz, resulting in an FSB of 880Mhz).
and I recommend SANDRA 2004 SP1 for benchmarking the real performance
increase. That should be a goot tip for you John.

Not to mention that my Linux Mandrake loves this motherboard too.. 8)

Regards,
Art.

 

[John Blaustein]

Art,

See comments below...

I totally agree with John's research and results.
I did a similar quest. Ended-up with a P4P800Edeluxe and could not be happier.
Not that a P4C800Edelux is any less for that matter.

No question that the P4C800xx is a great board too -- lots of good comments
about it and the P4Pxx. I chose the P4P800xx because a few comments in the
NG suggested it was perhaps a bit more stable than the P4Cxx and I have no
need to use ECC memory.

I run the original BIOS, and can easily overclock the CPU from 2.8Ghz to 3Ghz,
on Kingston Value RAM (approved on the ASUS memory list).

I am using the original BIOS too -- 1002. I read too many posts here about
flashing disasters.

One comment to John Blaustein though... Overclocking 10% from the BIOS is
the easy way; but that should result in decreasing your RAM performance...
I did my overclock manually, (CPU 220Mhz, resulting in an FSB of 880Mhz).
and I recommend SANDRA 2004 SP1 for benchmarking the real performance
increase. That should be a goot tip for you John.

While I've been using PCs since 1982, this is the first time I've built my
own machine and I still have a lot to learn about how they work and how to
modify the default settings. Several posts warned against using the AI
Booster program, so simply setting the AI Overclock in BIOS from Standard to
+10% was all I was comfortable with. I'd hate to change something that
would screw things up.

If my setting the BIOS to overclock by 10% has reduced the RAM performance,
I will set it back to "Standard." My main use of this PC is for Photoshop
(I'm a photographer), and PS is very RAM intensive. It's my impression that
for PS, RAM performance is more important than CPU speed. I have to say,
this PC is so fast already compared to my previous machine -- PIII/1Ghz
w/1GB RAM -- that I'm happy with it as-is.

I see that there is now a Sandra 2004 SP2a (9.131). I assume I should get
that version if I decide to start fooling around with more sophisticated
overclocking. Are you familiar with a benchmarking utility called PC
Wizard? Does it do the same thing?

If it's not too complicated, can you tell me how to go about manually
setting the overclocking in BIOS? (My RAM is Mushkin, PC3200 Blue, 4x512MB
DIMMS DDRAM -- total 2GB RAM.)

Best,

John

 

[Shawn Barnhart]

The P4C800-E has its gigabit ethernet connected to the CSA bus, so
LAN traffic doesn't load down the PCI bus. That helps in server
applications.

I ended up with the P4P800E-Deluxe. For me, the fairly esoteric advantage
above wouldn't mean much -- don't have GigE on my LAN and all the other
boxes I talk to are ancient PIIs and 60Mbit/sec is about what they can do
from a performance perspective, anyway.

I thought of it this way -- for not much more than the price difference
between the P4P and the P4C you can buy a new SATA drive that will give you
day-day performance bennies way beyond the rather limited benefit provided
by the Intel NIC integration in the P4C.

 

[Art Simpson]

John Blaustein wrote in message ...

Art,

See comments below...
(SNIP)

While I've been using PCs since 1982, this is the first time I've built my
own machine and I still have a lot to learn about how they work and how to
modify the default settings.

It's funny you mention this John,
I too run PC since 1982. Even before that, I had a nice OhioScientific computer,
running 6502.. Before that, it was an RCA proto board; Cosmac VIP, and
I learned my baby steps at a RadioShack Store with the friendly manager,
and a TRS80.. What memories.

I never doubted your skills.. I just point out something I learned for myself,
on a same board. And this too is the first one I build from scratch; Previous
ones I would just pick components and let the store assemble them.
Too busy with my engineering job I guess; Not anymore.

Several posts warned against using the AI
Booster program, so simply setting the AI Overclock in BIOS from Standard to
+10% was all I was comfortable with. I'd hate to change something that
would screw things up.

If my setting the BIOS to overclock by 10% has reduced the RAM performance,
I will set it back to "Standard." My main use of this PC is for Photoshop
(I'm a photographer), and PS is very RAM intensive. It's my impression that
for PS, RAM performance is more important than CPU speed. I have to say,
this PC is so fast already compared to my previous machine -- PIII/1Ghz
w/1GB RAM -- that I'm happy with it as-is.

Samething here;
Except that I did notice a difference with that slight overclocking.
It's been years since I overclocked anything. Never much worth the trouble of
adding superior HS and ventilation. I run a stock Intel HS and I would never
up the CPU or RAM voltage to get better results. Stability is very important
here also... That's what SANDRA is also good for. Testing in loop (burning) mode;
performance areas you wish. As well as giving you a very detailed view of your
hardware and associated performance.

That's how I discovered that upping the CPU clock using AI booster resulted
in slightly less ram bandwidth. Doing it directly to the CPU clock which can be
increased in 1Mhz steps; I just went for 210Mhz (x8=840Mhz fsb).. That was fine
but I could even up this up to 220 and pass all my stability tests...
It's really simple to do, no hassle and stability is easy to validate since the
ASUS temperature monitor is an excellent marker to determine the upper
temperature limit the CPU reach under stress tests. If it can run hours like that,
chances are you'll never experience a problem, and since the voltages are untouched,
I feel very safe with it... Upping CPU voltage is something I would not recommend
at all since it increases the diode reverse current in every transistors of the chip.
and that can really get the silicion hotter. Increasing the CPU clock should also
increase temperature from increasing the switching rate of all transistors, thus
also dissipating more heat. But that's still well within the limits of the Intel P4C
core design. In fact; The CPU's at Intel's factory are mostly made aiming for
that 3+Ghz, and some batches perform better than others; Then are marked
accordingly. In other situations, the CPU wafer contains some chips that can
break the barrier and get well beyond specs. Intel can't test each and everyone.
Even more, sometimes Intel has to fill the market demand even though it could have
loads of 3Ghz ready P4.. It's marked and sold as P4 2.4, or 2.6 or 2.8 ...
I can't prove this for the current P4.. But this happened for older P3 technology.

Bottom line is that using such an ASUS board and tools; Knowing a bit about
the technology can make you feel safe about a slight overclocking that can
be easily monitored for a couple of days under stress. Then you decide if your
hardware integration is stable enough.

I recommend that you take a peek at this article:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/asus-p4p800_7.html
That's an eye opener for P4P800 / P4C800 interested dudes.
But it explains the PAT technology a little and tips.

What's important is to enable MAM in the BIOS.
Then there is another setting that helps to gain RAM speed as well.
The options are AUTO, STANDARD, and TURBO.
Don't go TURBO.. STANDARD would be nice if it worked, but it's better
to set it AUTO (default), and go right in the next section to manually get
the CPU about 10% faster clock.. The first thing to check is if it posts and
boots. Then monitor the temparature; Then SANDRA bench and stability tests.
That's certainly easy for an experienced photographer.

I see that there is now a Sandra 2004 SP2a (9.131). I assume I should get
that version if I decide to start fooling around with more sophisticated
overclocking. Are you familiar with a benchmarking utility called PC
Wizard? Does it do the same thing?

Not familiar with PC Wizard as I'm very cautious about shareware and freeware
around that could carry trojans or viris (not to implie PC Wizard is). I just know
for a fact how great SANDRA works and widely used and known from the community.
Available also from sites such as download dot com... I not an overclocking maniac either.
SANDRA is without nags, free to use in the basic version and excellent.

I'm not a benchamrking freak anymore.. And you'll agree that with a P4C in the 3Ghz
range and 800+Mhz FSB, and a great HD capable of 45Mb/s STR on that motherboard;
I'm not worried, nor interested in downloading these 178MB video bench tools.
I read everything in tons of article to correlate the reviewers results. I'm satisfied.
SANDRA gives graphical performance curves as well; Then I use it mostly to determine
if it's working within specs before I try a little overclock.

I would recommend SANDRA even blindfolded.

If it's not too complicated, can you tell me how to go about manually
setting the overclocking in BIOS? (My RAM is Mushkin, PC3200 Blue, 4x512MB
DIMMS DDRAM -- total 2GB RAM.)

I did it above; Really... There is nothing else than getting all the AI boosting OFF,
and default.. Then get the CPU clock to 220Mhz 1:1 ratio means 8x to the FSB.
If your system is not stable at 220Mhz CPU.. Lower it to 210... It could be the video
that does not hold the 881Mhz speed... Better luck next time then... No big deal I agree.
But a 10% stable overclock, no hassle, for FREE is something great to use.
BTW; Vid card is Radeon 9800Pro (with DVI/TV out) here...Like a charm with stock
drivers on CD; All under win2KPro + Linux... Linux also runs with flying colors at this overclock
speed...Oh, don't forget to turn MAM ON !.. Although I don't know if PAT is working with four sticks.
SANDRA tests would tell.

Running 2Gigs (4 sticks) is a bit trickier to get stable overclocked system (some specialist say).
But I don't think it's gonna matter much, Mushkin as an excellent brand. My ram is in theory
of lesser quality. but I use only two slots (blue) for a total of 1GB.

If you take a little time to setup the 'geek' details now; You'll enjoy a better system for the years
to come... Running Sandra will show you if that 10% AI overclock cripples the bandwidth and if
my recommendation does better. If the overclock does not work; You'll still be able to 'TUNE'
your machine with SANDRA's precious infos, to perfection.. The heck with overclocking if it
does not work.. I agree this BOARd and current P4 and 800Mhz FSB technology rocks...

P.S.. I also use CANON camera for my photos; SONY Digital8 firewire video on 8mm tapes,
and a truckload of video applications for DvD authoring. We do have lots in common John;
I'll be watching your posts in this forum for a while... Any questions; I'm here. !

Best,

John

No.. You the best
Art,

 

[John Blaustein]

Art,

Thanks for all the additional information!

John

 

[Art Simpson]

John Blaustein wrote in message ...

Art,

Thanks for all the additional information!

John

My pleasure,
Art