# THE best socket 478 motherboard out there?



## Keiki (Sep 28, 2005)

Hey guys! I'm really stumped at choosing a really good socket 478 motherboard so wish u guys can help me out. I bought a Asus P4P800-SE motherboard just last summer and it broke... SO im looking for a new motherboard now. I really didn't want to upgrade to those new motherboards cuz i would have to change my cpu, video card to pci-express blah blah.

So, what motherboard should I get for socket 478? I have an Intel Pentium 4 3.0E Ghz processor, 1gb of Corsair 3200XL ram, AIW 9800pro vid card and i want to have IEEE1394. I'm not gonna be overclocking this motherboard right now, but in the future I might... just to keep up with the crowd   . Not really sure what the major differences are between I865 and I875 chipsets, but seeing as socket 478 is almost obselete now, I want the I875 chipset motherboards since it offers better performance. 

What motherboard should I get?


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## Urlyin (Sep 28, 2005)

Keiki said:
			
		

> Hey guys! I'm really stumped at choosing a really good socket 478 motherboard so wish u guys can help me out. I bought a Asus P4P800-SE motherboard just last summer and it broke... SO im looking for a new motherboard now. I really didn't want to upgrade to those new motherboards cuz i would have to change my cpu, video card to pci-express blah blah.
> 
> So, what motherboard should I get for socket 478? I have an Intel Pentium 4 3.0E Ghz processor, 1gb of Corsair 3200XL ram, AIW 9800pro vid card and i want to have IEEE1394. I'm not gonna be overclocking this motherboard right now, but in the future I might... just to keep up with the crowd   . Not really sure what the major differences are between I865 and I875 chipsets, but seeing as socket 478 is almost obselete now, I want the I875 chipset motherboards since it offers better performance.
> 
> What motherboard should I get?



Keiki ... I would look at getting another ASUS .... P4C800-E... best i875 board IMHO with the ABIT IC-7G running a close second ... don't forget that DFI has an i875 board but is socket T (LGA775) which means a new CPU but still a good board ...


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## Keiki (Sep 28, 2005)

What's the difference between P4P800 Deluxe and P4P800-E? They're both pretty much the same board right?


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## Urlyin (Sep 28, 2005)

Keiki said:
			
		

> What's the difference between P4P800 Deluxe and P4P800-E? They're both pretty much the same board right?


Close but the -E has a different Nic and hardrive controllers I believe, It's closer to the P4C800 than the plan P4P800 ... The -E is a newer rev and it's the board I'm using at this time ... w/ the CT-479 adapter and PM 750


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## djbbenn (Sep 28, 2005)

I have to P4P800-E Deluxe aswell, and I highly recommend it. Have heard lots of good things about the Abit IC-7's too.

-Dan


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## Keiki (Sep 28, 2005)

Well, I wanna know what the main difference is between P4C800 and the P4C800-E. Performancewise I haven't seen a really large increase in reviews. If it's only minimal differences I would rather get the P4C800 and save myself a couple of extra bucks   . Btw, I only have 1 200GB SATA harddrive and 2 IDE harddrives which are 120gb and 200gb. Does the P4C800-E have an increased performance over the P4C800 in SATA harddrives or is it only when I have 2 or more SATA harddrives installed?


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## djbbenn (Sep 28, 2005)

The P4C is a fair bit more money than the P4P. The main difference is the chipset. It has the 875 over the 865 of the P4P. And they other thing that the P4C has is PAT. But the P4P has it, but just in a different form. Besides that I think the rest is the same.

-Dan


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## Keiki (Sep 28, 2005)

djbbenn said:
			
		

> The P4C is a fair bit more money than the P4P. The main difference is the chipset. It has the 875 over the 865 of the P4P. And they other thing that the P4C has is PAT. But the P4P has it, but just in a different form. Besides that I think the rest is the same.
> 
> -Dan



Whoa... thanks for mentioning the P4P800. I just checked on the internet for reviews and I found that the P4P800-E Deluxe actually offers more or less the same performance with the P4C800-E with "pat" or what the guys at asus calls it "hyperpath". It is actually MUCH cheaper as well. It also does most of the things I want it to. IEEE1394, PAT, etc. I guess Im gonna go with this board then since it offers so much more for less money.


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## INSTG8R (Sep 28, 2005)

Im very happy with my IC7 its built for OC with tons of options in the BIOS, great performance and the PAT really lowers memory latency. I had an IS7 previously which uses the same PAT hacks as the ASUS one on the 865PE chipset, I find the IC7 much easier to work with.


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## Keiki (Sep 28, 2005)

INSTG8R, I have looked at the Abit IC7 as well but I found comparisons between the P4P800-E and the Abit IC7 that put it off my list. If you look at this comparison 

http://www.digital-daily.com/motherboard/asus-p4p800-e/index06.htm

the P4P800-E actually performs on par with the IC7 and in most cases, beating it. Also, the P4P800-E is cheaper than the I875 boards.


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## SeLrAhC (Sep 29, 2005)

i am using a p4p800-e deluxe with wifi... and i can say that this is a very good board and regarding PAT... u can actually enable it if u know how 2 do it... the only drawback is d max vdimm is 2.85V... 

unless if u wanna o/c like hell... get dis board... or not... get a abit ic7 max3

actually it depends on ur budget


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## bim27142 (Sep 29, 2005)

SeLrAhC said:
			
		

> i am using a p4p800-e deluxe with wifi...



same board here, so far i'm rock stable... should you still have a thicker budget, jump for a p4c800-e deluxe... p4c800's are legendary overclockers!


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## djbbenn (Sep 29, 2005)

SeLrAhC said:
			
		

> the only drawback is d max vdimm is 2.85V...



You can use the OCZ DDR Booster on this board though. 

-Dan


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## Deleted member 3 (Sep 29, 2005)

p4p800 or p4c800 series I'd say, very lovely boards.


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## Keiki (Sep 29, 2005)

bim27142 said:
			
		

> same board here, so far i'm rock stable... should you still have a thicker budget, jump for a p4c800-e deluxe... p4c800's are legendary overclockers!



Hmm, not really planning to overclock all that much though (It will kill my hardware inside my case since my case only has 1  120mm outtake fan at the back and no fans can be installed from the side or at the front) and as it stands, the P4P800-E and the P4C800-E have around the same performance. 

Another factor is that I need to be able to buy this card retail, but I cannot find the P4C800-E for sale but I did find the P4P800-E selling for $140 CDN.


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## INSTG8R (Sep 29, 2005)

just bear in mind that it has been proven just lately that ASUS OC their boards a bit without telling you(hence the nice performance boosts)I would go for the 875 over the 865 I have both the PATs in ABit form (IC7 and IS7) the IC7 is much friendlier board as the 865PE boards require really tight RAM timings to make use of the PAT(at least in the Abits Case)


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## djbbenn (Sep 29, 2005)

Yes that is true with the P4P800-E Deluxe as well. You need close/have 2-2-2-5 timings to make full use of it. Heres a nice review on the P4P800-E Deluxe.

-Dan


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## Solaris17 (Sep 30, 2005)

well while were on it can anyone point me in the direction of an exellent 453pkg mobo?  thnx i would hope it supports sdram being all i have


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## Keiki (Sep 30, 2005)

djbbenn said:
			
		

> Yes that is true with the P4P800-E Deluxe as well. You need close/have 2-2-2-5 timings to make full use of it. Heres a nice review on the P4P800-E Deluxe.
> 
> -Dan



I have corsair twinmx 3200XL which has 2-2-2-5 timings, so ram really isn't a problem here


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## djbbenn (Sep 30, 2005)

Nope.  You should have good luck with the PAT on this board then. Even though its not called PAT, but it is basically.  

-Dan


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## W1zzard (Sep 30, 2005)

i've been using an abit ic7 for ages .. excellent board ..


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## Solaris17 (Sep 30, 2005)

tottaly sweet board sept it isnt 453 sigh i envy anyone w/ a higher pin pakg if i didnt loose my job   ive have an a64 dual core sys or an fx-57 #@$%^#$


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## Keiki (Sep 30, 2005)

Hmmm this may be going off topic a bit but, if I use the onboard audio opposed to my Soundblaster live 5.1 would I notice a performance decrease? Would using the onboard audio rather than using a sound card result in a performance decrease?


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## djbbenn (Sep 30, 2005)

It will a bit...not much, it probably wont sound as good. Benchmarks will take a but of a hit. I had a sound blaster 5.1 and a didn't install it straight away and never did put it cause the onboard was good enought. But the sound blaster has better support for games...

-Dan


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## intel igent (Sep 30, 2005)

gonna have to say the asus p4p/p4c series of boards. they are excellent quality products from my experiences, they oc well and are stable boards  . 

im currently on my second asus board, a p4p800e-deluxe, i previously owned a p4p800se but i upgraded for the extra sata/raid and for native firewire


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## SeLrAhC (Oct 1, 2005)

2bad asuscan't produce board like that now... asus boards now are crap... sigh


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## intel igent (Oct 1, 2005)

SeLrAhC said:
			
		

> 2bad asuscan't produce board like that now... asus boards now are crap... sigh



WTH are you talking about? for us intel guys ALL of the new record speeds are being done on asus boards, mainly the p5wd2 for skt 775 and the good ol p4p/p4c series doing a beating with the dothans. i think you should read a little more before you post, or dont post at all.


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## SeLrAhC (Oct 2, 2005)

hmm hmm... i agree p4p n p4c are good boards as i m using a p4p800e-deluxe with wifi...

asus produce good boards for standard use... but how bout o/cer? d vdimm provided is jsut not enuf... and i m not that rich 2 get 1 of those tccd chips... 

no idea bout 775... who cares? i would prefer a 939... and asus can't even beat dfi or abit in terms of o/c...


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## intel igent (Oct 2, 2005)

^^refer to my earlier post.


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## SeLrAhC (Oct 2, 2005)

bleh... i get what u mean

neway... good luck on ur p4..

as i would b going for a amd


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## Keiki (Oct 2, 2005)

Just bought the P4P800-E yesterday, and as expected, PAT is enabled! woot! Well, other than the firewire and 8 channel audio, nothing is changed much from my p4p800-se. This board is still good enough to handle some gaming and everyday tasks, so i guess it'd probably take me a few years until i will my comp replaced. 

Next year I'm goin to uni, so laptop time!!!


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## Keiki (Feb 12, 2007)

Hey everyone, sorry for reviving this extremely old old thread, but once again I broke my motherboard.  

I was upgrading my bios, I don't even know why, maybe I was on crack... Anyways, it flashed successfully but when it rebooted, the bios won't load and it would hang. However the power would turn on and the fans and stuff would appear to be working.

So here's my dillema, I want to hold out for another 2 years to upgrade my desktop, since direct x10 is going to be big soon, not right now though so I have to find a motherboard replacement.

I am stumped in choosing the ASUS P4P800SE mobo (my first mobo which broke) or the ASUS P4S800D-X which is cheaper than the P4P800SE by about 30 bucks.

For anyone that knows, what is the performance difference between these two motherboards? As I've said, I want this to hold out for at least 2 years, (although it seems like I'm breaking a motherboard yearly now...) so performance must be at least adequate by today's standard. I know that they are based on different chipsets and that the P4P800se is the faster one, but does the P4S800D come close to the P4P800se? Since I break my motherboards so fast I don't know if I want to spend more money to get the P4P800se.

With my newly deceased P4P800-E mobo, I get the following scores from Everest:

CPU queen - 1985
CPU photo - 10456
CPU Zlib - 12515
FPU Julia - 2135
FPU Mandel - 2953
FPU SinJulia - 1333
Memory read - 6105
Memory write - 4231
Memory copy - 4597
Memory Latency - 73.3ns

So if someone with a newer system with everest can compare their scores to mine that would be great, because I want to know how my old system stacks up against the new ones. Detailed description of my rig can be found under my specs.

I'm considering getting cheaper motherboards because I'm going to upgrade eventually and don't want to spend much more money on this system. 

The hardest thing now is to actually obtain socket 478 motherboards, they're practically ancient now!! Although I don't want to go with ASUS boards again (broke 2 of em now:shadedshu ) I don't have a choice because they're the only ones out there!

I live in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada so if anyone living around that area know of places selling socket 478 motherboards other than Asus please tell me.

EDIT: Seems like I solved the problem, it was a bios issue... so it seems like I'll be using this motherboard for quite a while still!


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## paul06660 (Feb 20, 2007)

*Epox 4PDA5+ is the fastest 478 865 PE board!!!*

Hey for you looking for a socket 478 motherboard solution.

I have the Epox 4PDA5+ 865PE motherboard and I recomend it to anyone.
I have the Intel 875P motherboard that cost $100 more and it is barely faster.
I have my 4PDA5+ on Patriot memory PSD1400KH in dual channel at 2.5-3-3-7.
My video is a Sapphire x850XT AGP at 520/540

This board is ferocious and will take on ANY 875P board out there. (turbo memory option in the bios allows Intel Performance Acceleration Technology which is the main feature of the 875P chip)
The silicon image 3114 rev. 2 SATA+RAID is an awesome feature!!!
And the diagnostic LED is nice too.
Supports 4 gigs of memory 
Comes with a nice collection of cables, heatsinks, ect.

Here is the Manufacturer Product Page...
http://epox.com/USA/product.asp?id=EP-4PDA5plus

A few last things.
I upgraded from a p4p800 elitegroup and the 4PDA5+ blew it away, as it will any other.
Good luck finding this board ANYWHERE!!! I bought mine for $90 and Newegg.com outsold them within 2 weeks of reciving them in stock one year ago.


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