Wait no longer for the Asus P4S8X!

[IntelConvert]

Rick~ Sorry, I didn't know of the Radeon 9700 problems, but I've been burned too often in the past by rushing to judgement on newly released equipment (but no more)! The point I'm trying to make is just good common sense. People tend to allow themselves to get hyped on the latest chipsets rather than wait at least long enough to give the '1st tier' hardware-sites (e.g., AnandTech, TomsHardware, ExtremeTech, etc.) sufficient time to 'shake it and see what crawls out'. For that matter, we often read about users who run into problems that the bench-testers never experienced. But then again, for all I know the board will probably turn out to be a winner!

 

[Tates]

I saw this post at Asusboards.com:

Radeon 9700 Has 8X Issue AND ATI FIX

Spent over an hour with ATI Customer Service Canada and more important, the Engineering Dept. The subject: Our testing shows the Radeon 9700 will NOT work at all on the Asus P4S8X (SiS648), Gigabyte 7VAXP (KT400/8235), and VIA P4PB (P4X400/8235) which are the only 8x AGP boards on the market. Customer Service was not completely aware of this, but Engineering is.

According to ATI, they are now receiving and testing these 8X AGP boards. They are ALSO finding the 9700 does not work at all or works intermittently at best. Engineering indicated most of the boards already shipped have this problem.

Solution: A new BIOS and some board revisions are now available that fix this problem. Call ATI Customer Service for help with the issue. At present, they will ship a replacement board that WILL work in SiS and VIA 8X, but they are also considering a BIOS flash solution for problem boards.

Customer Service and Engineering deserve a 10-1/2 for their wonderful handling of this issue. They are very concerned that it be corrected quickly. They also shared that most of their 8X validation testing was done with Intel's unreleased 8X chipset and that they are just now receiving shipping versions of the SiS and VIA 8X chipsets.

Here's the link

 

[dbett]

Originally posted by: IntelConvert
Rick~ Sorry, I didn't know of the Radeon 9700 problems, but I've been burned too often in the past by rushing to judgement on newly released equipment (but no more)! The point I'm trying to make is just good common sense. People tend to allow themselves to get hyped on the latest chipsets rather than wait at least long enough to give the '1st tier' hardware-sites (e.g., AnandTech, TomsHardware, ExtremeTech, etc.) sufficient time to 'shake it and see what crawls out'. For that matter, we often read about users who run into problems that the bench-testers never experienced. But then again, for all I know the board will probably turn out to be a winner!

I don't disagree with your point as a general rule (and I may end up living to regret getting the P4S8x),

But I have it know and the system is running perfectly (except for the learning curve problems caused by screwing around with WinXp for the first time). Installation was easy. The documentation is good. Everything perfectly fit in the Antec case (and the I/O plate lined up).

The board with a P4 2.53 CPU and 2 512Mb sticks of the (new revision) Corsair DDR Ram, is running great. Haven't tried to overclock yet (or use the RAID controller), but don't really feel the need to at this point. The system (especially with a slightly overclocked GeForce 4 4600) is incredibly fast and can run anything out there now.

All in all I'm very happy with my rushed purchase. I guess we'll see down the road.

Cheers.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

Preliminary Overclocking reports from Prometheus over at the asusboards show this board doesn't cut the mustard. It is no better than the P4S533 in terms of overclocking. Max attainable FSB was around 150-155. No AGP/PCI lock, damn I was really hoping this board would be so much better. There were AGP 8X problems reported but that is due to ATI's fault and there is already a beta bios from Asus that supposedly fixes it.

 

[iMage]

dbett,

You're running 2 512 of ddr333 cl2 correct? If that is going stable, I think I am going to return my ddr400 from googlegear and get the cl2 ddr333... If everything is stable, ill be very happy.

On another note, dbett what kind of antec case do you have? I have a 1080b outfitted for my mobo... i freaking have everything ready for my computer EXCEPT my mobo (should be coming in Tuesday)... did the IO plate match the original IO for the antec case? or did you have to use another plate? (also if you have an antec an a ti4600.. how are the room issues? I know the 4600 card is quite long.. does it interfere with your hd's at all??)

 

[dbett]

Originally posted by: iMage
dbett,

You're running 2 512 of ddr333 cl2 correct? If that is going stable, I think I am going to return my ddr400 from googlegear and get the cl2 ddr333... If everything is stable, ill be very happy.

Yeah. It's running fine. The bios automatically picked up the correct settings for the memory and everything tested out in sandra.

Originally posted by: iMage
On another note, dbett what kind of antec case do you have? I have a 1080b outfitted for my mobo... i freaking have everything ready for my computer EXCEPT my mobo (should be coming in Tuesday)... did the IO plate match the original IO for the antec case? or did you have to use another plate? (also if you have an antec an a ti4600.. how are the room issues? I know the 4600 card is quite long.. does it interfere with your hd's at all??)

I have the "Plus 1080" Not sure what's different about the 1080b?? Anyway, everything fits with plenty of room. My Gainward G4 ti4600 doesn't interfere with anything (although it is close to the RAM - so I installed that and the CPU before putting the MB in the case).

And the Asus I/O plate snapped right in and all the connectors line up dead on (just have to bend up a few of the clips on some of the holes a bit before you slide the MB in place).

All in all, I'm very happy. And who knows, down the road Asus may release a bios update which allows more overclocking options - but at this point I have no need for them.

 

[iMage]

dbett,

Its the same case:

I have a Antec 1080b plus (b refers to the fact that the case is that charcoal black color).

The only reason I asked about the gf4 ti4600 (i have a gainward one as well) is because I've heard some talk about it interfereing with the hard drive cage (i.e. the lowest removable cage in the case). If you have no space issues with it, then hopefully it will be fine...

Oh, just remembered, another question i had as if you could use the PROMISE RAID ide for just an ordinary HD (without employing RAID). I was hoping to attach 2 hd's via a dual ata ide cable to that particular ide slot. Do they say if this can be done or not?

 

[dbett]

Originally posted by: iMage
dbett,

Its the same case:

I have a Antec 1080b plus (b refers to the fact that the case is that charcoal black color).

The only reason I asked about the gf4 ti4600 (i have a gainward one as well) is because I've heard some talk about it interfereing with the hard drive cage (i.e. the lowest removable cage in the case). If you have no space issues with it, then hopefully it will be fine...

One thing I realized, I only have one hard drive installed (its in the upper part of the lower drive cage). Going by memory, it would be the lower slot in the upper drive cage (below where I hthat would interfere with a card in the AGP slot (not 100% on that). But, it's possible that if you have more than one hard drive, there could be interference.

Originally posted by: iMage
Oh, just remembered, another question i had as if you could use the PROMISE RAID ide for just an ordinary HD (without employing RAID). I was hoping to attach 2 hd's via a dual ata ide cable to that particular ide slot. Do they say if this can be done or not?

Not sure, as I just used the normal IDE slots. There are insert pages in the manual for the RAID controller so things may have changed somewhat at the last minute. But I didn't look at that section in any detail. I simply disabled the Promise controller in Bios so it would stop scanning for attached drives on boot up.