Asus P3V4X upgrade to...?

[Rusman]

I'm looking to upgrade soon. I have a P3V4X, what is a nice board? I have been pleased with the Asus, but I don't have to stay with them. I chose this board for it's stability and O/C capabilities. What's recommended? I don't need the latest and greatest (read: most expensive), but like I said, O/C and stability are preferred factors.

Thanks!

 

[KennyH]

Are you looking to go AMD or stick with an Intel platform and what is your price range?

 

[Rusman]

Hi Kenny, I guess stick with intel. I'm considering a 1.6a, but I'm researching that right now. It does look like it's the best bang for the buck oc'er. I'm open to suggestions, though.

Price range is probably around $300, give or take, including mobo, cpu, and ram. I don't want to skimp on quality so if that price is a little out of line let me know.

 

[Rusman]

Forgot to mention that I'm not necessarily interested in an Audio/Lan integrated board.

 

[Wozz]

Hey Rusman, this is the exact situation I have been facing. I was running a PIII 600 at 800 very stable on my P3V4X for 2 years and decided to upgrade recently. I decide to go with the Asus P4S533, a 1.6A and 512MB DDR 3200 Corsair. The MB and processor were $250 and my memory selection was another $220. However, you don't necessarily need that much memory or memory that fast. You will need to spend more than $300, but if you go with a good stick of 256 MB DDR, you could get away for only $350.

I'm doing my upgrade this weekend. Good luck.

 

[Rusman]

Thanks Wozz. I was looking at the P4S533, but read a couple of complaints about it, so I turned my attention to the Abit IT7. That is a drool worthy board! Too bad the price is too .

So far, my wish list on newegg consists of the IT7, 1.6A, and 256MB Samsung DDR 2700 all for $369 before shipping. With the Asus board, I would save about $58, which brings it right down to where I want to be. I do like the RAID option on the IT7. Oh decisions, decisions!

 

[Wozz]

Yeah, I already have RAID on a modded Promise card, so I don't need it on the MB and I need the added controllers anyway. That sounds like a nice board, but I haven't read much about it to know how it overclocks. Intel boards don't have any support for DDR 400 yet, only 333. That was another reason for my choice of a SiS 645Dx board.

 

[Rusman]

That's a good point, at least for futureproofing.

 

[Woz]

Woz=Wozz

Rusman, I did my upgrade today and it went fairly smoothly. Right now, I'm humming along at 2.13 Ghz with my 1.6a at 40C with memory at DDR 400. Very simple overclock, as much of a no-brainer as the PIII 600E overclock to 800 that I did on my P3V4X.

A word of warning however! I had one problem which was my own fault, call it poor memory or eagerness. I upgraded the system and keeping my hard drive intact with WinXP. I did not think to uninstall the VIA drivers before switching out the boards. When I booted up with the new system, I would crash to a blue screen as soon as the OS started to load. I reinstalled WinXP from CD and everything was fine. Then I updated with the SiS drivers for the new board. If you do a new install on a clean hard drive, you won't have this issue. If you just swap the board and keep the drive intact, be sure to uninstall any VIA drivers and revert to Windows drivers first.

Sweet! This baby boots up so fast. I'm going to go play a game now.......

 

[Rusman]

Wow! Sounds awesome Woz!
/me is jealous

Thanks for the warning. I plan to do a fresh install, but unless I can clean off one of my drives, that won't be happening.
You plan to try to take it any higher?

 

[Woz]

Yes, it is so stable and temp was totally unaffected by the "overclock" (totally proving that the chip is designed to run at this speed IMHO), so i will try to goose it up higher. I was to burn it in for a couple days before I play anymore. Maybe 2.4???