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Basically i'm tired of troubleshooting and not writing music. So based on the info on this site and largely on Subhumans tests i'm going with the P4TE. But before i purchase i thought i would gather some info. i have seen some issues with lower pci bandwidth that cusl-2 (current board). anyone else have other issues, especially long ones that seem unfixable? If you get occasional crashes, what is the nature. Stability is key. Pulsar for me only acts as outboard gear. A G4 750 mac drives all sequencing and audio. I use ADAT and an Alesis AI3 to send audio to and from the Mac. Currently I can't run V3.01 or SFP3.1 for an extended period of time without having base.dll errors. Happens on both 98SE and XP.

Current System
CUSL-2
PIII-800
Crucial 512M Ram
AGP ATI Rage Pro
Diamond Max 30G
Puslar I--Irq 10
Pulsar II-Irq 10
Lynksys LAN Card
USB Midisport 4x4

Target System
P4T-E
P4 1.6 or P4 1.8
512 PC800 RDRAM
AGP Maxtor G450
Diamond Max 30g
Pulsar I
Pulsar II
USB Midisport 4x4

Will lose LAN if necessary to gain stability

thanks
JD


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JD on 2002-05-20 17:57 ]</font>

i can speak on the p4 w/ 850 chipset.i have the intel board d850mvl w/ built in lan and pci perf is not as good as the culs2.it's VERY stable tho (running 98 lite NO crashes),i would expect the asus board to be so also.

The LAN card is the key, most cheap linksys cards use a realtek 8139c which completely hogs the pci bus, I had a lot less problems after removing this card. If you must have Lan get a decent intel or 3com card just make sure it doesn't use realtek!

The graphics card, I think personally that ATI have taken a nose dive in terms of drivers lately in order to compete with the big 3d guns, this doesn't always apply to a rage 128, but the drivers do use a common code base. Get a tried and tested matrox.

Check your PSU and cooling are up to the job.

Absolutely dump the ATI. I would actually suggest a nVidia card at the moment, if you want dual head something with nView is pretty good. Gainward and Visiontek are my favorite nVidia brands.

You did notice there is the newer ASUS P4T533 board out now, right? I'd suggest you get that board instead, it's got official support for the new 533FSB so you will be slightly more future compatible.

I would also highly HIGHLY suggest that you skip 1.8 and go STRAIGHT TO 2.0GHZ OR HIGHER. I would wait until you can afford those chips if cash is the issue. And definitely make sure your chip is the new Northwood with the 512k cache.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: subhuman on 2002-05-21 09:12 ]</font>

You did notice there is the newer ASUS P4T533 board out now, right? I'd suggest you get that board instead, it's got official support for the new 533FSB so you will be slightly more future compatible.

Sub, haven't you tested it yet? Any Masterverb tests? How it is compared (in terms of performance and PCI width) to P4B266 and P4T-E? What about P4T533-C vs P4B533?

I would also highly HIGHLY suggest that you skip 1.8 and go STRAIGHT TO 2.0GHZ OR HIGHER. I would wait until you can afford those chips if cash is the issue. And definitely make sure your chip is the new Northwood with the 512k cache.

Another question to clarify (I'm a bit confused). Is every P4 with 512k cache Northwood? Or there are other (non-Northwood) 512k cache P4s? In the price list of a company where I'm going to upgrade I've seen only processors with 512k with no mention of "Northwood".


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Noctulius on 2002-05-22 22:07 ]</font>

While i admit to not a being a Pentium expert i am pretty sure that Northwood stand for the new generation of Pentium IV with 512 kb cache so the answer would be NO.

There is'nt Pentium IV:s with 512 kb cache that is'nt Northwoods.

The reason they did'nt print that is that just geeks (such as myself) knows about this stuff.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jupiter8 on 2002-05-23 06:07 ]</font>

Thanks jup. I thought so.
Now there's the only question remains - P4T533 vs (P4B533/P4T-E/P4B244)...

P4T533 or P4T533-C.

Sub, are you saying these two are the best or asking me which one I ment? Heheh... In fact, I don't know about the difference. Seen only P4T533-C at Asus' site.

If these are the best (I believe so), still - any Masterverb tests?

re: mv tests on i850 - see results for P4TE.