i own a ASUS P4S533-E (2002) ASUS P4S533-E (Motherboards: Intel Pentium4) by ASUS -- FiringSquad Hardware Info & Web Reviews and i have a spare mobo, P4i45GV R5.0 ASRock Motherboard - Product - P4i45GV R5.0 - Overview Comparison both are 478 socket,533/400MHz asus is SiS 645DX North Bridge and SiS 962 / 962L South Bridge ITE 8707F LPC Super I/O Chip asrock Intel® 845GV chipset asus has 3 slot ram asrock only 2 slot ram asus supports UltraDMA 133/100/66/33 asrock only IDE 2 x ATA 100/66/33 asrock 8x agp asus 4x agp i am on 2.4 ghz, 512(166mhz) + 512(166mhz) + 256(133mhz) and a 7300gt agp i was thinking of migrating to the Asrock mobo because asrock supports 8x while the asus which i am currently using is only 4x, but have to abandon my 256 ram and getting ata 100 for my harddisk only. performance wise, should i migrate?
Well, the 4x bandwidth to 8x bandwidth isn't that too much actually. Anyway, I thought Asrock has another 865GV chipset for S478 platform? If so, it's better to get that one instead: P4i65GV. But, download the manual book first - the AGI (some weird hybrid AGP thingy) slot there isn't easy on certain gfx cards like the Radeon 9600s. However, I have even tried that on the 6200A when I have the 865GV Conroe. For the RAM, you can actually obtain 2x 512 DDR400 from the auctions or the 2nd hand market - cheaply.
Not sure if the 4X to 8X on the AGP is worth the transition. I have a P4i65G sitting here in a box as well as the PCI-E version the P4VM890. Only issues I had with either is make sure the VIA drivers are up to date for EVERYTHING !! I think you will find belikethat the overall quality of the ASrock boards isn't very good ...
thanks guys.i guess i won`t migrate than, i just take the mobo heat spread to my asus lol, asrock's bigger and more fins
Really cheap aluminum alloy though same sink as the P4i65G. What I did is took it off the P4i65G and put it on the southbridge of the P4VM890 because I don't use the AGP board anymore. Helped a bit but the mobo still doesn't like 1.65 Vcore .. its cheap lol *shrugs*
Newer ASrock boards are better in quality. The other value based ones especially VIA are heard to be loads of problem. Some of them drivers, some of them incompatibilities, and some of them both. The P4i65G is still a good choice, and meanwhile I'm pretty sure it's a hell of a bottle neck putting a PCI-E GFX card on that P4VM890. Furthermore, that PCI-E bandwidth ISN'T 16x - it's 4x.
They are not to bad for the money and the only difference between the P4i65G and the P4VM890 is the video card slot they are identical Prescott based boards in every other way I have run both. You get what you pay for. On the bottleneck and the bandwidth where did you get that info bro? I have a reason to ask I was running a modded X1950 512 at that time and didn't see bottlenecks except the CPU But decided it was time to move on to 775 so here I am .. anyway belikethat let us know how your NB heatsink changes and stuff go and good luck with it ASRock Motherboard - Product - P4VM890 - Overview
Well, it's still kinda weird to put a high end PCI-E inside those boards as well - especially with a single-core CPU. The bandwidth might be 16x for those VIA-based chipsets, but the electrical problem caused it to be only 4x at best. I read that from Anandtech which reviewed that Asrock Dual-VSTA board if i'm not mistaken. Sometimes, Asrock boards have problems with the cold boot. When it starts for a short while, it zips back to off, and you have to turn it on again. There's one strange anomaly on the board though - on certain times, the PCI-E bandwidth bounced back to 1x and a full boot-up is required to bring it back to 4x. I dunno why VIA isn't rectifying this PCI-E issues, especially on the Intel platform. VIA is doing good on the AMD platforms however.
Well I guess for someone who doesn't want to upgrade there CPU,Mobo and memory to DDR2/3 it serves its purpose. They are a cheap motherboard. On memory, AGP and PCI-E issues I experienced with both boards they were all resolved by BIOS and VIA chipset updates. I am running onboard video and audio on that machine now its what I use for IM and surfing while my main rig is tied up for tests for articles. I have no intentions of running a new high end card in it lol. As for bottlenecks well if you check through NGO where I will no longer go you will find a thread started by Dyre Straits. He was running an E6000 series CPU at that time with an X1950XTX it was for fun but I think he was trying to prove a point. He failed on that point and really don't care about the benchmark BUT ... I did outbench him on 3dmark3 running my 478 socket Prescott on that mobo with a modded X1950 I think sometimes people rely on results and statistics from 3rd party sources to often and lack vision of what modding and O/Cing can really do .. no offense to anyone
Hmm.. interesting report. Yes - it's a controversy here. There's only 10% performance hit on these 16 -> 4x reduction of the bandwidth anyway. However, many of the VIA-chipset based boards are rumoured to be flaky, especially the problematic cold-boot (Asrock) and poor stability/performance (MSI). I once used a MSI board with a VIA chipset for Intel platform and it's fine for me. No problems too, but maybe it's not really geared for gaming. Also, the Asrock Dual-VSTA is a fantastic board despite the minor shortcomings. I wonder do they still sell those or not!
True on controversy and the reason I managed to outbench Dyre even though he was running a C2D was the modded X1950. And I know some will say 3dmark3 isn't a real test but the fact is his X1950XTX went into thermal shutdown trying to match the core and memory I could reach with the modded card. So in reality I doubt at the settings he had for that 3dmark3 score he would even be able to run the Crysis benchmark stable On the ASrock boards and VIA I think we said the same thing in a different way. You get what you pay for and these two mobo's I have here even though they are lower end work DAMN good. We are getting off topic here but a good discussion Bro ... sorry to hijack your thread belikethat
