Asus P4 mobos - Rambus or DDR for SFP?

Trailerman · Post by **Trailerman** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 2:54 pm

Having been raving about SFP on the "other" list for the last week, my AMD system has suddenly gone flaky on me - about two freezes per day at the moment and some scarey CMOS checksum errors on bootup yesterday; hopeless in a professional environment. Reinstalls have not fixed it.

So after 12 months of loyal service, my XP2100+ (currently), Epox 8K7A+, 1GB PC2100 DDR may have to be demoted from Creamware duties: it was the best AMD option I could find at the time, but things have moved on.

So, having not followed chipset developments over the last year or so, I wondered if I could beg some advice. I'm thinking of going P4 for the new rig, on an Asus board, but I wondered if the experts here could advise on whether DDR is now considered equal or even superior to Rambus options? I've checked the threads here and it seems pretty balanced, so can any of the system gurus here perhaps pass on some advice?

ALL I care about is reliability and PCI bus performance (if that's still a real issue). I'll be getting a 2.6 or 2.8 GHz Northwood and 1GB of whatever RAM, depending on the board, and be running Windows XP (probably in Standard PC mode unless advised otherwise). The only other application I run on this system is Gigastudio, as Cubase SX etc. run on a seperate machine.

I guess I'm asking anyone who knows more than me (not hard, Seth - you out there?) to advise on the following: Assuming Intel chipsets are safest - P4T533/533C ... or .... P4B533/533E/533V?

Many many thanks in advance - I really hope this is the last SFP machine I build for a few years, and sorry to be an information leech!

Jules
http://www.trailermen.com

PS. If anyone knows whether/which of these boards can take Scope boards (lots of boards have jumpers & stuff in the way) that would be hugely helpful.

[ This Message was edited by: Trailerman on 2002-10-20 16:00 ]

valis · Post by **valis** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 7:01 pm

First of all, although it focuses primarily on the i845PE (finally officially supporting DDR333) this is a good read to catch up on the new chipsets:

Intel's announcement today encompasses four total chipset announcements: 845PE, 845GE, 845GV and 850E w/ PC1066 support. The improvements to the chipsets are minimal and are mostly on the validation side of things but they are what separate these additions from those that were available just a few weeks ago.

As far as I am aware, i850 with pc1066 RDRAM still offers the best memory performance (and performance overall) but often people will opt for the DDR chipsets due to the cost savings. I don't think you'll be complaining about missing the extra 3-5% that pc1066 affords, DDR should do just fine if that's the direction you choose to go.

There's even a few reviews at Anandtech of the Epox i845PE (ddr333) mobo and the Intel D845PEBT2 Blue Mountain 2 (845PE).

Good info there, whatever your choice if you do opt for a p4 system and it's not one of the ones reviewed above, be aware that much like last year's socket transition (from socket 423 to socket 478) the P4 has now taken a frontside bus speed increase (from 400mhz to 533mhz). You'll definately want to get a motherboard (with a chipset) that supports the 533mhz fsb, you'll most likely get usb 2.0 in the process too. If your budget is a concern, getting a 533mhz capable mobo. and running an older processor would be my recommendation as it assures you'll reach up into the 3Ghz+ range when you upgrade.

As for board layouts conflicting with Scope cards, someone else will have to field that one...

[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2002-10-21 01:38 ]

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Sun Oct 20, 2002 7:46 pm

[note] valis, your syntax is correct, I think you disabled HTML in that reply

valis · Post by **valis** » Mon Oct 21, 2002 12:36 am

Weird I was on another pc, perhaps a cookie thing? Works fine from here tho...

Trailerman · Post by **Trailerman** » Mon Oct 21, 2002 2:20 am

Thanks Valis - I'm checfking those articles now.

I'm slightly loath to go Epox again (my Athlon board is Epox, and although it's been good for allmost a year, these freezes and CMOS errors have kind of put me off alittle).

I guess Asus is the popular choice so I'll just follow the heard. They just have so many models at the moment, if you're not totally on top of the game it's pretty confusing.

As budget isn't too much of a factor, it sounds like the RDRam option is the one to go for. Can anyone tell me the difference between the P4T533 and the 533-C?

Thanks again for the help.

Jules
http://www.trailermen.com

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 3:01 am

533-C has LAN according to asus.com

Why don't you get the P4PE latest card, with improvements compared to 533
http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socket478/p4pe/overview.htm

there's a version with serial ata but i wonder in how long that feature will be useable

Trailerman · Post by **Trailerman** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 3:36 am

Hi Mehdi - good to hear from you

I've actually decided to go for a Supermicro P4SGA (i845G chipset) with 1GB of Corsair XMS3500 DDR Ram - just in case). I almost ordered an Asus P4B533-V, but my dual Xeon is running on a Supermicro board and it's been the most reliable system I've ever owned. Also, the Supermicro has on-board LAN and all my systems are networked.

An Asus P4T533-C would have been another option, but 1066 RDRam is impossible to get in proper quantities at the moment. It's also alot more pricey.

The new P4 boards do look good, but I've learned the lesson of always trying to get the latest technology - It usually blows up in your face unless you know plenty of other people who use it successfully. I spent almost a year testing the latest Athlon chipsets, even using reference boards from AMD, and I'm not convinced it really got me anywhere. For once I've been sensible and gone for a chipset which seems tried and tested!

I'll post here how it shapes up as soon as it's up and running, if anyone's interested.

Jules
http://www.trailermen.com

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 4:19 am

I understand, myself i'll go asus because i've been satisfied with the cusl2, even though I had some spontaneous reboots , reading dvd for example, but it may be my super cheap sdram or my old power supply well, only 2 years old but...)

I'll upgrade to a p4 2.5 gb in a few days, and i'll go with p4PE, beleiving it's an improved 533 board (i hope it will be fine).
I'll go 1Gb DDR pc2700 too, a brand name but i don't know which one yet (corsair, samsung, danelec,.... ?). I don't need serial ATA right now.

I still have hard time choosing between a simple IDE 7200 rpm HD or 15K scsi u160, really, that's the big question (i must run 99 tracks at least, as my current system only allows between 45 and 55 audio track, which is pretty limited in my way of working.

I'll post how the system behave too. Especially with the new english microphone (TB47!! i point this only to show off a bit:-)
See you soon then

jbraner · Post by **jbraner** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:14 am

spacef,

FWIW, I went for the Asus P4B533-V (i845G chipset). This board supports DDR333 - it may be "unofficial", but it works fine for me with DDR333 DDRAM, and it's simple to set up. With the new BIOS (1005), you just choose the memory buss speed - instead of using a ratio like 4:5 (133MHz FSB:166MHz memory - which then is doubled for DDRAM to 333MHz).

All this gets picked up automatically though from the SPD (is this the correct acronym?) settings on the memory chips.

The board is working great for me with:
P4 2.4 GHz
1GB CAS 2.5 DDR333 DDRAM
etc etc

John Braner

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:33 am

yes, i think the main diference in the new board is that they "officially" suport DDR 333, what is confusing is that it talks about pc 3200 DDR.... aaargl !!!
http://www.asus.com.tw/mb/socket478/p4pe/overview.htm

here, you may see a pick with icons showing "DDR 333 pc 3200", in the add for p4Pe..
But insn't pc3200 for DDR 400 ????
http://www.asus.com.tw/index.asp

second choice would be the 533 boards

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2002-10-22 06:43 ]

Trailerman · Post by **Trailerman** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:46 am

i845 systems (like the P4B533-V) should work fine with any DDR memory which is certified to operate at it's FSB speed or higher. ie. you can use PC2700 (333MHz RAM) with the i845 boards, as well as faster memory (in my case, Corsair XMS 3500 is actually certified up to 434MHz, cas 2).

Whether the system actually NEEDS or utilizes the additional memory speed comes down to whether or not you're going to overclock.

That's my understanding anyway - it's not beyond the realms of possibility that I may be mistaken.

Jules

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:49 am

at least your message makes me feel better

I'll try to find more details abot this.

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2002-10-22 06:54 ]

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 5:59 am

pc3200 is ddr400 pc2700 is ddr 333, the 2700 refers to the peak bandwidth available it megabytes.

One thing to note about the intel 845PE chipset, is that, it is currently the only one to officially support processors in excess of 3ghz.

Sorry, I should rephrase that because I'm not saying that all other "chipsets" won't support 3ghz+.
It is the motherboard that is the problem, the 3ghz+ p4's require more power, thus mobbo manufacturers have had to change the designs of the motherboards, slighlty.

It just so happens that this has occured in line with the 845PE release, AFAIK all 845PE based motherboards will support the new power requirements, and of course hyperthreading, in order to support processors in excess of 3ghz

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Tue Oct 22, 2002 6:10 am

ftp://ftp.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/sock478/ ... 0_p4pe.pdf

the manual of the p4pe : it officially support any DDR 333, and support for DDR 400 seems unoffcvial (you see it in the specification, but not in the manual parts about ram).
Also, scope user should be careful as you have the RAID connector back to pci slot , which would make it impossible to plug a SCOPE Board (at least version I) on slot 1, 2 and 3 (from the top). This connector is optional... (nb : i think the Scope I board is actually following pci specifications as to size so...).

The supermicro seems very good, eventhouh it dosn't seem to be distributed in France...

[ This Message was edited by: spacef on 2002-10-22 07:52 ]

zzero · Post by **zzero** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 12:30 am

what about dual channel ddr ?

Granite Bay anyone ?

valis · Post by **valis** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 3:29 am

Supercomputing Giant Cray, Inc. Adopts Upcoming AMD Opteron™ Processor For Sandia National Labs Computer

The computer is expected to use more than 10,000 AMD Opteron processors and will have a theoretical peak performance of 40 trillion calculations per second, or 40 teraflops. The AMD Opteron processor technology will provide 64-bit capability, advanced processing power, on-chip high memory bandwidth, and high on-chip I/O bandwidth required for Sandia’s simulations. It will also feature a simple building block approach with HyperTransport™ technology that will enable easy implementation, and reduce engineering, design and component costs for manufacturers.

Sounds like a replacement for my dual xeons =]

remixme · Post by **remixme** » Wed Oct 23, 2002 4:52 am

On 2002-10-23 01:30, zzero wrote:
what about dual channel ddr ?

Take a look at this link http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzAz

Basically intel are just releasing this board to the high end server/workstation market first, possibly at the end of this year.
But it won't reach mere mortals like us till early spring 2003

zzero · Post by **zzero** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 2:06 pm

On 2002-10-23 05:52, remixme wrote:
On 2002-10-23 01:30, zzero wrote:
what about dual channel ddr ?
Take a look at this link http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzAz

Basically intel are just releasing this board to the high end server/workstation market first, possibly at the end of this year.
But it won't reach mere mortals like us till early spring 2003

check -> http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl30381/

I work at a hardware trader/dealer and normaly we should recieve granite bay mainboards in november/december.

A lot of normal mainstream brands are going to release mainboards on this chipset not only the more expensive server minded brands.

spacef · Post by **spacef** » Sat Oct 26, 2002 4:24 pm

On 2002-10-23 04:29, valis wrote:
Supercomputing Giant Cray, Inc. Adopts Upcoming AMD Opteron™ Processor For Sandia National Labs Computer

The computer is expected to use more than 10,000 AMD Opteron processors and will have a theoretical peak performance of 40 trillion calculations per second, or 40 teraflops. The AMD Opteron processor technology will provide 64-bit capability, advanced processing power, on-chip high memory bandwidth, and high on-chip I/O bandwidth required for Sandia’s simulations. It will also feature a simple building block approach with HyperTransport™ technology that will enable easy implementation, and reduce engineering, design and component costs for manufacturers.

Sounds like a replacement for my dual xeons =]

be careful because of VIA compatibility !!!

zzero · Post by **zzero** » Wed Oct 30, 2002 11:52 am

Intel confirmed the dropping of RDRAM

http://www.ebnonline.com/story/OEG20020226S0040

so duno if it's still wise to invest money into an RDRAM p4 system