What's a good buy!

[Surfer]

Hey everyone,

I am getting the g400 max but not sure which mobo would be the best for it. I have read about the matrox/via conflict as well as the intel MTH issue. So i am totally confused what i should go for. I think it's worth mentioning that i hardly play any games and buying this card only for great graphic quality. So help me out here. BTW, i have a P3 450. Thanks.

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Surfer.

[Moleman]

I have no big troubles so far with my P3-450 on a Abit BE6-2.

What I have encounterd so far:

- Letters and icons turnded a little pink in explorer windows, but that was fixed with a setting in the bios.

- AGPx2 mode was disabled by default, even when setting it to high in the bios, but the reghacks released on Matroxusers helped me there.

And this board is also great for overclocking your CPU as you can increase FSB with 1mhz at the time, just love this feature.

**needed two edits to get it right, I need to get some sleep**

[This message has been edited by Moleman (edited 07 June 2000).]

[CharlesWA]

Well, I haven't had any VIA/Matrox problems with my Millennium G200 (I know, it's not quite the same as a G400, but same driver set if I recall). I will say that the ASUS P3V4X is awesome (with the VIA chipset)! I bought it and a new full tower case and moved everything else over. My PIII 450 is now running just fine at 4.5x133=600. The board even allows you to keep running my old PC100 ram at 100 Mhz, even though the CPU FSB is at 133 Mhz. I plan on getting some PC133 ram in a few weeks, but as it is I've gained a significant amount of performance from my CPU.

I'll probably do a clean install of Windows ME this weekend, along with all the latest VIA, Matrox, Creative Labs (SBLive! Value), Adaptec (2940), WinTV, Hollywood Plus, etc. drivers. I'll post if I have any problems.

Charles

[This message has been edited by CharlesWA (edited 07 June 2000).]

[Kruzin]

With a P3-450, and decent BX chip based board will do a good job. I have used Asus and Abit BX boards, and never had a problem...

[Zaphod]

Hi
I gotta agree with Kruzin, get a good BX-board.
Take a look at anandtech latest roundup.
I would go for the Asus board, you get a board from a proven manufactur and a ultra dma 66 interface.

Zaphod

Edit: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1250
Forgot to post the link

[This message has been edited by Zaphod (edited 07 June 2000).]

[paulcs]

Let me jump on the BX bandwagon. You're probably not going to overclock that PIII 450 to 133 MHz, and that's one of the attractions of the P3V4X.

The Asus P3B-F is a very nice board. It's stable and fast and has some nice features.

AOpen makes a great motherboard called the AX6BC Millenium Pro II.

If you're feeling ambitious, and you decide to spend some money on a new CPU, the socketed Asus CUBX might be the best board I've ever used. It's very fast, very stable, and Asus tried to duplicate many of the features found in the newer chipsets (ATA-66, expandability to 5 USB ports).

The PIII 700's price is in freefall. If you have the money to spend, it might be time to upgrade to a socketed motherboard and CPU.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[impact]

Ask Purplehaze about VIA stuff. You might find the answers you seek.

[Borg]

BX chipset works fine ..no problems with AGP & driver stuff..still it is an OLDER chipset..maybe you should conssider somthing based upon i820 wich will give to you FULL AGP4X support & afterall next MATROX cards will support it in full like GF256gts2 or ATI READON..I think this sould be better upgrade for a longer period of time..

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PIII450@504(fsb@112),P2b,128mb,Matrox Mill-G400 32SH,Diamond MONSTER Sound II ,IntelliMouse Explorer (yahoooo! no fu..hm hm. ball any more ...)

[HedsSpaz]

Ask Purplehaze about VIA stuff. You might find the answers you seek.

Ouch! *winces in fear*
You know impact, it's not particularly nice to lead people unwittingly to their doom.

Ignore anything that Anand has to say. Sorry, Zaphod, but Anand is an idiot. He has poor reviews that are obviously influenced one way or another depending on what he currently things is the hot thing(read, who he is currently being payed by). In all honesty, there really isn't anybody out there who does good motherboard reviews(well, at least that I've found). If you take all reviews collectively you can get a pretty good idea usually, but you should never decide solely on thte basis of a single review.

Anyway, to thrid or fourth the notion, a good BX based board is your best bet if you don't want to go all out on an upgrade. I agree that Asus, AOpen, and Abit all make great boards.(if you want my personal opinions, I tend to lean towards Asus).

Luck to you,
Ian

[MadCat]

Besides Borg, he cant easily integrate an i820 into his current setup. Now that the MTH option is no longer avaliable, he would have to shell out mucho buckos on brand new Rambus RIMMS.

Go for the BX chipset.

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This Signature Space FOR SALE / RENT

[DuRaNgO[MU]]

BE6 ver.1 or 2 are great boards, no probs whatsoever
jim

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Abit BE6 with P3 500 @ 5*133=667 using an MC-1000!
14.6 gb Maxtor ata66 and Twinmos 128mb pc-133 ram
G400 vanilla 32mb @ 168/210 @ 2x
Sblive with Altec Lansing speaker combo
384k DSL and Realtek nic
Windows 98se with DX7a
Worn out reset button :O)

[Livius]

Any brand name BX should do fine (MSI 6163Pro or BXMaster; Gigabyte 6BXC or BX2000/+; ABIT BF6, BX6 2.0, BE6-II; ASUS P3BF and CUBX; Soyo 6BA+ III/IV, etc.) I have used most of these boards and they all worked fine with a G400.

But do not discount the VIA 133A completely, unless you have a SB Live that is. With any other soundcard (Guillemot's Fortissimo, any Vortex2 card) the newer 133A boards are fine. I was particularly impressed by the Gigabyte 6VX-4X and, to a lesser extent, by Soyo's 7VCA but I'm sure the Asus boards are OK as well. Both the Gigabyte and the Soyo boards worked well with the G400.

[Cloudy]

I'm with the BX folks over here.
Good although a bit old, maybe not a s fast as the 820 but at least it's stable.
You should also remember that since it's older, it's also chaper than the i8x0 shit.
I have my MOBO for almost a year, and it still packs some juice for me. Take a good BX like Asus/Tyan/Abit and let your G400 rock.

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Cloudy
Asus P2B-DS, 2 x Celeron 400@75Mhz, 128Mb Ram, SB Live! Platinum,
2 x IBM 4.3Gb scsi,IBM 22GB IDE, Pioneer DVD ROM scsi, G400 32MB DH (Oc to 150/200).

[EchoWars]

BE6 ver1 gave me fits...friggin Highpoint controller turned out to be junk. Have heard better about ver2...

Do not be scared of the VIA 133A chipsets, no matter what you read or are told. Using Win98SE, the *only* patch needed is the AGP GART. Most people hose their system by pounding on the 4-in-1 drivers till the drivers or registry or both are corrupt. And using a Matrox card means using the 5.41 drivers (5.30 if you want to play SS2) for now. No biggie...

Tyan 1854 133a mobo (1.0 BIOS version)
G400 Max PDesk 5.41 running at 4x
PIII 600e@800eb
Turtle Beach Montego II Quad

3DMark 2000 score- 3370

[This message has been edited by EchoWars (edited 07 June 2000).]

[Surfer]

First of, thanks everyone for your great replies.

I was going to buy a BX chipset mobo but then it's quite outdated now and i don't/can't upgrade my system every 6 months. I wasa inclined towards buying Asus P3C-E (i820) but then the review on FS suggests that due to the riser card for sdram, i will lose quite a bit of performance. Also that rambus might *not* become as popular as sdram so i am a bit hesitated to go for it.

The other board i am looking at is the VIA P3V4X. But don't know if there is a quick/easy fix for my G400 max to run on it. The real problem is that there is no other company (other than VIA and Intel) to make a good MB. But that's a totally different issue and has been discussed already by many. So please tell me which one of the two mentioned above is better (P3V4X or P3C-E). I am afraid i might have to end up with P3B-F. But that depends on you guys.