Motherboards
 

I was doing some searching on the forums in preparation for a new AMD purchase, and I couldn't find any good threads discussing different motherboards. I'm mostly interested in price/overclocking options on AMD motherboards, but I suppose it'd be good to get in all those Pentium mobos on the same thread too.

Basically, with the multitudes of motherboards out there, what should one look for, and which motherboards are considered the best for a high-load, low-maintinance project (like GIMPS) these days?

For a "monster" or dedicated cracker box, probably the best buy in Athlon motherboards right now would be a PC-Chips 810 or a Biostar M7VKQ.

I'm not *sure* if the PC-Chips supports Boot From LAN, though - the M7VKQ definitely does - but for a dedicated cracker box, the PC-Chips tends to be a couple $ cheaper and Boot-From-LAN isn't a requirement.


Both boards have on-board VGA and LAN, and are widely available for under $55 *shipped*. I've seen them used in bare-bone systems with XP1600+ and case/PS for under $100 (NOT shipped) from a few sources.

I know the M7VKQ doesn't support much overclocking. How's the PC-chips when it comes to speeding things up a little? I've got a lot of cooling equipment (fans, good case...) that's currently being wasted on a dead Pentium 166 (I killed it fiddling with the mobo that isn't SUPPOSED to support OCing) and I'd like to get as much speed out of the processor as possible.

No overclocking on the PC Chips boards, any of them. I haven't found any third party software to help either.

I'd avoid boards with integrated video that uses part of the system memory as video memory (UMA). The sharing of memory bandwidth between the processor and video can be extremely detrimental to Prime95; P95 needs the memory bandwidth.

For example, my Celeron 600 provides benchmark scores approximately equivalent to a Celeron 400 when used on a UMA board, even with the video set to 640X480x8. A Celeron 900 was reduced to about a Celeron 600 in the same board.

On another board (PC Chips slot 1 UMA- I forget the model number) a Celeron 400 was reduced to a Pentium 200 level of performance with the onboard video enabled. Disabling the onboard video and using an ancient 4MB S3 PCI card brought the performance level back up to the norm for a C400. (I'd post benchmarks, but that computer has been retired).

If you use the new 845G/GL integrated video there is almost no hit...

If I were to build a farm, (I am considering it now that my wife has increased my monthly allowance!) I'd use Intel-branded boards, probably the D845GLADL ($100) or the D845GERG2L ($125, or $140 with gigabit ethernet)... Yes, they cost a bit more, but I'd rather do the job right the first time than risk submitting a bogus result... Everyone at this point will jump on me about how reliable PC-Chips/ECS/Biostar are, but in my experience, Intel boards are much more reliable and certainly better documented...

There are several legit approaches to farm building... I just happen to take one that costs a bit more initially...

I could go on about this for hours, but I don't want to bore you all... :)

[quote="Xyzzy"]If you use the new 845G/GL integrated video there is almost no hit...[/quote]

That makes sense...using DDR ram at a higher clock rate reduces the percentage of bandwidth used by the onboard video.

I'll need to re-examine my inherent bias against UMA video when I get my hands on a modern board..

help on motherboard purchase
 

[uote="Xyzzy"] (I am considering it now that my wife has increased my monthly allowance!) I'd :)[/quote]

Glad to see she has increased your allowance. I could talk to her if this increase is not enough for you. But on to more important matters.

I have ordered my P4 2.4B but I am unsure which motherboard to purchase.
Ideas?

Asus P4S533.

It has everything.

For a dedicated cruncher box, on the P4 side the ECS P4S5MG/GL+ (or it's similar siblings of slightly different chipsets) seems to be the most cost-effective MB offering right now - it's basically the P4/533FSB closest equivilent to the Biostar M7VKQ (for Athlons).

ASUS makes some good motherboards, but they tend to be expen$ive....

I looked on newegg and that ECS board doesn't appear to support a 533 Mhz FSB.