**Update** $132 P4-1.6a (shipped) @ Newegg and Mainboard comparision to go with.

[DRS]

Just pulled the trigger at Newegg, thanks for the heads up! I'll be so glad to be rid of this VIA crap - no more 4 in 1's!!

 

[MowSow]

I think I am going to jump on that deal !!!

 

[johto]

So here's a stupid question, I'm sure...

whats the difference between the P4B266 and the P4B266-C. All I can see is that the C has an optional realtek NIC while the normal one has Intel optional.

Any other differences?

 

[kevman]

p4b266 has a few things the C model doesn't:

on board sound
USB 2.0

 

[Uclagamer_99]

new egg rocks...ordered yesterday and it's being delivered today!!! guess it pays to live in los angeles

 

[mrVW]

HEY, No one saw my mention of P4S333 - bargain board - better DDR support

I have systems with the p4b266 (with USB 2.0 / audio onboard), I built a system with it 10 days ago. Got it for $155 at a LAX computer show.

Anyway, since the $80 deal was not honored, I ended up ordering a P4S333 - SiS chipset instead of intel. MWave.com had this for $107.

This board OVERCLOCKS GREAT! It also lets you use ALL THREE DDR SOCKETS! So you can go 1.5GB by doing 3*512 or do 768 by doing 3*256. The P4B266 doesn't allow this (see earlier posts).

I am running at 140Mhz FSB on my MWAVE.COM 1.6A... 2324 Mhz! Rock solid on Windows XP Professional with 1GB of RAM. I just got the lifetime warrenty DDR PC133 512MB from MWAVE.COM. I ran RC5 cracker for hours, in a 85 degree room... no problem! I haven't tried to go higher, I'm happy at 2324 Mhz.

 

[Uclagamer_99]

very cool (about the asus sis board)...most people haven't dealt with sis though so they are cautious...my ecs k7s5a works great though

 

[Flatbroke]

I went and did it. Funny how quick a 1.3Gig system (May 2001), gets "old". I got the:
P4B266-C
P4 1.6a
Chieftech 350w case
Mushkin 512 PC2100 2-3-3 ram
Sony 52x CD ROM
from Newegg, $540 shipped
and with:
OD Maxtor 7200 20gig HD $39 (got the rebate)
C-Media 4.1 sound card $10 (may use a Sound Blaster 4.1 from another rig)
Best Buy Visiontec Ti200 $99 (got the rebate)
various cheap fans cables $12
my old keyboard and mouse, nic
$700 total for 2.3? GIG, WAY less than half the cost of the Crusher Pro I bought from PCNUT and had to send right back on my dime for them to redo because of the VIA/Creative lockup problem and a bad floppy drive. (Still steamed, oh well) This will make me all better.

Edit: Can't spell Mushkin yet.

 

[juice]

ok.. i've been convinced by all this hype =P

ditched my plans for a xp 1700+ system to go with the 1600a + overclocking.. what ram should I use? i know w9 is using the samsung ram (is the pcr2700 333mhz stuff @ newegg the same?) what do you recommend I go with? and don't just say high priced ram.. whats practical.. also.. i'm torn between the msi 845 ultra board with usb2.0 or the asus with p4b266-c without.. about the same price.. i saw people were still getting ~2.4ghz out of the msi.. is this msi board as easy to overclock as the asus for voltage + fsb?

thanks

 

[juice]

wow.. talk about lurker.. just noticed i've been registered here since 99 and only 9 posts.. heh

 

[BigJ]

<< ok.. i've been convinced by all this hype =P

ditched my plans for a xp 1700+ system to go with the 1600a + overclocking.. what ram should I use? i know w9 is using the samsung ram (is the pcr2700 333mhz stuff @ newegg the same?) what do you recommend I go with? and don't just say high priced ram.. whats practical.. also.. i'm torn between the msi 845 ultra board with usb2.0 or the asus with p4b266-c without.. about the same price.. i saw people were still getting ~2.4ghz out of the msi.. is this msi board as easy to overclock as the asus for voltage + fsb?

thanks >>




If you have the cash, you can get some PC2700 DDR (and one PC3000 DDR). Here's a few different brands with stores/prices:

Mushkin CAS 2.5 256MB PC2700 DDR SDRAM $116 - Mushkin.com
MULTIWAVE 256MB PC2700 333MHZ NON-ECC DDR DIMM CAS 2.5 $105 - Mwave.com
OCZ DDR RAM 256MB PC-2700 333MHZ CAS 2.5 $81 - Newegg
OCZ DDR RAM 256MB PC-3000 366MHZ CAS 2.5 $89 - Newegg
Corsair 256MB PC2700 DDR RAM 333MHZ $137 - Newegg
KINGMAX DDR333 PC-2700 256MB CAS 2.5 $93 - Newegg

This stuff is approved at 166mhz, while the PC3000 is approved at 183mhz. This ram has about a 10-15$ premium over PC2100 DDR (In the OCZ and Kingmax case)

 

[eviltommy]

I have also abandoned by plans for an Athlon XP 1900+ with Soyo Dragon Plus MB
for an 1.6a or 1.8a wif o/c.

I am a fan of Soyo motherboards, i was just wondering if anyone has used either P4 Dragon (Fire[intel] or Ultra[sis]) ?

 

[patrickj]

I'm really trying to resist this...I have a 1Ghz P3 that I built 9 months ago for cheap....has anyone gone from a Ghz box to the 2.2Ghz+ overclocked box? If so, how much faster is it? My current box is in my sig and I would probably be reusing most parts, but probably would need a new power supply. I don't have any spare power connectors. My case is full up. Any power supply recommendations for an Antec SX830 case?

 

[JoeFoster]

Will an Antec 300watt PP-303XP powersupply from my Anted 1030 case work for a Pentium 4 setup like this?

 

[Piblokto]

JoeFoster,

The PP-303X may not be enough, unless you get one of the new ASUS P4 boards (e.g., the P4B266 (i845 chipset), or the P4S333 (Sis 645 chipset). Both of them allow you to plug one on the normal power connectors off of your PS into the motherboard to supplement the normal ATX PS connector. Not sure if any other mobos have this.

 

[mrVW]

FYI: The p4s333 that mwave.com shipped me is a "p4S333/PA/WOL" - it has audio onboard. The latest BIOS is 1003, available from asus.com.tw site.

Anyone found a decent price on PC2700 512MB modules, I'm going for 1.5GB total... The mwave PC2100 "Lifetime" 512MB modules haven't been doing so well. I had to pull one due to a few crashes in XP Professional...

 

[BigJ]

Best deal I can see on PC2700 512mb sticks is the Mushkin PC2700. Here's a link http://www.mushkin.com/cgi-bin/Mushkin.storefront/3c65db9300023f182742c0a8010205d7/Product/View/990866 The price is 219 + shipping, which is 6 bucks for ground and 9 bucks for 2 day FEDEX.

 

[mrVW]

Mushkin is the best I found too...

Too much extra for PC2700. So I just ordered 3*512MB (DDR PC2100) from Crucial... their ram has always been the most reliable for me. The mwave.com PC2100 is going back. With just two sticks I was having crashes when trying to install Microsoft Visual Studio .NET (4 CD-ROMS!)... I even returned system back to stock 1.6Ghz and it still did it.... always in different place. Pulled one of the two 512MB mwave.com DDR modules and problem went right away...

Working with that crap 256MB SDRAM from upgradeplanet 9-12 months ago on this forum taught me that unexplained crashes, especially with heavy CDROM/hard disk activity on Win2k/WinXP, is likely RAM!

Besides, Crucial RAM should run at 140Mhz without problem, which is good for my 1.6... I need stability... I'm willing to overclock and play a bit - but I've been burned by bad RAM too many times.

 

[Expandable]

Thanks to bring up the Asus P4S333 mrVW. $109 is a very good price. Let us know how it does.

I just add it to the thread.

 

[mrVW]

If you read groups.google.com - long-time asus users say that the SiS and intel chipsets are equal in stability... I have had the p4b266 for 10 days, it is good - but reading how the SiS was just as good... is the extra $ worth it? I don't think so.

Some fo the reviews I read said the p4S333 wasn't as good at overclocking as the p4b266 - but I haven't found that to be the case.

Anyway - Newegg has the p4s333 for even less than mwave.com - both are good choices for vendors, and both have the CPU of desire too!

 

[nealh]

nice too see both the mobos here allow use of the older ps...anyone know if a 300w antec will be enough to allow o/c with 2 hdd, cdrom,cdrw, radeon,sb live nic, adaptec scsi card and 512 ddr ram????

 

[mrVW]

Personally I think your 300 will be fine with that config. Make sure you have enough 12v output... the p4 has the extra pull for 12v.

The Antec power supply should be decent quality (not fake over-rated), so I wouldn't worry too much.

My kick-ass system I am building out of Anandtech threads:

-- 4u rack mount case - black (compugeeks) / Dynapower 350AT power supply (mwave.com)
-- P4 1.6A @ 140Mhz FSB = 2243Mhz (Haven't tried higher yet)
-- Asus P4S133 motherboard (mwave.com)
-- Plextor/Iomega 12x10x32x CD-RW (anyone remember CompUSA January 1 / 2001?)
-- Digital research 16x DVD-ROM (hey, I needed it to install Windows XP in hurry, paid a sucky $79 at Best Buy - yes, my Windows XP was a DVD disc!)
-- two Ethernet cards - LinkSys LNE100TX Version 5.0 (Best Buy)
-- Matrox G550 Dual Head 32MB AGP (mwave.com - man, tempted by the new dual-head Geeforce4 - but I don't really need 3D)
-- Planar 17.4" LCD, 1280x1024 (Dell.com)
-- Slyvania 17.0" LCD, 1280x1024 (Costco)
-- 80GB Maxtor 7200RPM in a removable 5.25" pull-out tray (mwave.com tray)
-- Promise Ultra133TX2 (reflashed firmware on Maxtor controller that came with 80GB drive) PCI. I have the hard drive on th Promise controller, CDROM + DVD drives on the on-board controllers.
-- Antec PCI to PCMCIA adapter, running my Orinoco 802.11b wireless (this machine is a 3-way router, two ethernet + wireless)
-- I added a 2nd sound board, just for kicks. PCI 5.1 channel one I got at mwave.com

Missing: RAM. Right now I'm running a single 512MB PC2100 mwave.com module. It is going back, not reliable.
-- Crucial 3 x 512MB PC2100 modules = 1.5GB, on order.
-- I also don't have any speakers, yes, two sound cards and no speakers

EVERY SINGLE slot is full on my Asus P4S333 - working great!

I was going to return the Costco 17" LCD and just use a 17" LCD + 15" Sony monitor I have (save $$), but I like having the dual 17" LCD so much that I may end up keeping it. The pivot software that came with the Planar allows the Matrox do run one at 1280x1024 and the other at 1024x1280 - nice.

This is my main software develop machine. I figured if I was going to run $2,700 worth of software on it (Microsoft MSDN Universal Subscription) I would at least do it in style

Thanks fellow Anandtech members for all the savings. I'm broke now

 

[BigJ]

<<

My kick-ass system I am building out of Anandtech threads:

-- Plextor/Iomega 12x10x32x CD-RW (anyone remember CompUSA January 1 / 2001?)

Thanks fellow Anandtech members for all the savings. I'm broke now >>



Yea!!!! Now that was a sweet deal. It came to $129.99 and there was a 30$ mail in rebate i believe. There was a huge topic on flashing the firmware on the Iomega to Plextor, and boy where ppl pissed when Iomega switched from Plextor to (I believe) Sanyo or Lite-On. I actually still have the firmware mods for that puppy, and just installed it on a system I built for my parents. Nothing but good times outta that Plextor .

 

[JEDI]

geez... some people are already upgrading their 1GHz systems???

i don't see much of a difference between my personal p3-667mhz system and work's p4 1.6ghz. yeah, windows loads a couple of seconds faster, but that's about it. word, web surfing all about the same to me.

now as for gaming, it's still about the same for games. i'm playing serious sam2 right now. both have geforce2 cards

but i would think any GHz system can handle all the games out right now. if you're going to upgrade the cpu, why not wait till you find a game that you would start to stress the CPU? that way, u can get a better cpu/mobo at the same $ as you are spending right now.

just my $.02

 

[BigJ]

<< geez... some people are already upgrading their 1GHz systems???

i don't see much of a difference between my personal p3-667mhz system and work's p4 1.6ghz. yeah, windows loads a couple of seconds faster, but that's about it. word, web surfing all about the same to me.

now as for gaming, it's still about the same for games. i'm playing serious sam2 right now. both have geforce2 cards

but i would think any GHz system can handle all the games out right now. if you're going to upgrade the cpu, why not wait till you find a game that you would start to stress the CPU? that way, u can get a better cpu/mobo at the same $ as you are spending right now.

just my $.02 >>



Obviously you haven't tried running Max Payne at 1024x768x32. OMFG it was crippling my system. Usually my comp (1.4ghz XP now at 1575 (10.5x150) w/ 512mb Ram and an Ati Radeon 7500) can handle most games at that resolution, and sometimes I can go up to 1280x1024, but in this case I felt like I was on my old 486. And with Unreal 2 coming in June, better upgrade those puppies now. Thats why my P4 system is in the mail (1.6A and MSI 645 Ultra) . Now if only Koolance would release a P4 Northwood cooler I'd be set (gotta wait for March)