845E, Sis 648, Granite, agggghhh!!

[SinnerWolf]

looking to get a new P4 board...and every time i get the credit card out to buy i get distracted by other options, reviews, and release dates. anyhow...i'm planning on getting a 2.4-2.8 P4 in the coming month, the sooner the better. Along with two 512MB sticks of DDR400 (corsair xms still the way to go for this??) So, i thought before i just made an impulse buy i'd ask those of you who are by far more familiar with them which board seems to be the best candidate for my needs.

need....
RAID, the more IDE ports the better
USB 2.0
DDR support, 3 slots or more (333 is fine, 400 is of course better)
3+ pci slots

want...
AGP 8x (not a big concern right now, as it seems more problematic then beneficial)
Serial ATA (not a big deal, but the adaptors make wires tidy if nothing else ATM)
Bios with decent overclocking options, don't have to be the BEST O/C'er but i'd like the option.

Don't really care about firewire, audio, lan, or legacy ports.

the Abit IT7 MAX 2, the Gigabyte GA-8IEXP & 8SG667, wait for the EpoX 4SDA5+? wait for granite? Any suggestions are welcome and grealty appreciated!!

 

[Rackemup]

I've looked at the IT7 MAX2 since I was thinking of buying it as well... but I believe it only supports DDR266 max, so DDR333 and 400 probably wont work.

And the new intel chipset supporting higher speed ram wont be out until next year ...

 

[oldfart]

need....
RAID, the more IDE ports the better
USB 2.0
DDR support, 3 slots or more (333 is fine, 400 is of course better)
3+ pci slots

EPOX 4G4A+ would do ya. Has all of that and more. Running high DDR speeds with 2 sticks of mem is tough, so I would stick with running DDR333.