P4-533 or 800 FSB?

[drstringlove]

I've just purchased an Asus P4T533 motherboard for the purpose of building a dedicated DAW(my second) and now need a CPU. The P4533 FSB and P4800 FSB chips are fairly comparable in price, so I am wondering which one will work best, and why? I would, of coarse, prefer to get the latest and greatest
but I want the machine to work at it's full potential. Can anyone offer suggestions? I'm open for any other general suggestions as well(It's been 2 years since I built my AMD computer). Thanks, Doc

[Keaves Sharpi]

If 533 and 800 are close in price, get the 800. Sooner or later you'll be upgrading anyway. The 800mhz speed is a convenient binary multiple, so it'll be around a while -in my opinion.

The 800 chip won't care that is has to run at 533. Of course, if you plan on just buying a new computer next time, upgrading doesn't really matter so you should buy whatever's cheaper. in my opinion.




[This message has been edited by Keaves Sharpi (edited 01-04-2004).]

[dawboxpro]

Stick with the 533 bus CPU you do not have a choice with this board and the 800FSB will not even work and if it does your lucky.

Stick with the 533Bus chip the 800FSB will not do you any good on this board.

Personaly I would take that board back and get a newer one Rambus or RD-Ram is expensive and they do not even make it any more so updrading it is a waste of money and spendy, plus you will not be able to take that ram and put it into a upgrade board for the future.

Go DDR-400 and a Asus P4P800-D unless you got that board for free.
www.dawbox.com (http://www.dawbox.com)

[habibbijan]

If you must keep that board, definitely buy the 533 processor. An 800 mhz FSB processor will ONLY run at its rated clock speed when the bus speed is set to 800. If you buy that processor and run it in your current motherboard, it will run underclocked (at significantly less than rated clock speed), and you'll be wasting your money. You will have better performance with the 533 FSB processor.

Take the board back if you can. If not, spring the 533 proc.

[drstringlove]

Thanks guys for the insight. The board was a good buy with one 256 stick of ram, so I'm planning on keeping it. Who knows, depending on the future of rambus, it may be a collectable someday. BTW I have really enjoyed this board over the last 2 years, keep up the good work.

[dawboxpro]

I didn't mean to come of ripping that board it is a decent one and at a good price well worth using.

I am assuming you got it with two matching 128's?

If your going to upgrade to 512 do not do 4 128's to get there or your asking for a world of pain and frustration.

I did a gig on that board 4X 256's to do the RD Config and it caused some hell!

RD-Ram at the time for 2X512 PC-800 was $500.

If it runs good under 256 for what you need do not put another dime into that ram.

I have a room full of collectors CPU fans and power supplies, I simply throw them away because I can't even dump the stuff on e-bay for $10 a 330W PSU, and $5 for OEM Intel P4 Fan/Heatsinks.

If anyone wants some Pentium 4 fans and or 330W PSU's for P4 or AMD I have about 30 and 100 of each.

Or I am just going to pull off all the fans weld 10 heatsinks together and make an art mobile with hanging parts that run!

a DAW Mobile anyone? (LOL)
www.dawbox.com (http://www.dawbox.com)

let me know! I am happy to help a brother out.

[drstringlove]

No Dawboxpro, It's just one stick 256k Samsung PC1024 32 bit. This board can operate on just one stick, but I suspect that one 32 bit stick is just two matching 16 bit sticks assembled at the factory. I'm scratching my head a little, though because they say this board can support 2GB of memory, yet there are only 2 RIMMs on this board, and the largest sticks I've seen have been 512MB. ASUS actually provided memory with some of these motherboards, one 256MB stick. Daw, are you sure you weren't using an ASUS P4T533-C motherboard? I think that there are some differences in the Rimms, perhaps even the chipset between P4T533 and the P4T533-C. I've done a lot of reading on Rambus memory and this motherboard in the last few weeks, and actually I find the whole Rambus debacle rather interesting. First, all the initial problems, then, at the time that this motherboard came out, reviews were saying it was top of the pile...then.. Intel drops support of Rambus???? Could anyone enlighten us on the difference: 16 Bit vs 32 Bit Rambus?

Daw, you talk about your cyber junk; I have an old rack mount Viking tape record and tube preamp(parts from an OLD computer). If you had my old tape recorder your mobile could be really MOBILE! Think about it, you could mount in on your ceiling....trade?

[dawboxpro]

I thnik you are right on the board VS the P4T533-C I built a few of them with so so results and massive ram prices lame.


The "T" must be there last version of that board before rambus got the AXE. So you say your running just one dimm without a dummy dimm in there to terminate the voltage?

Hey if it works for you and it was a good price hats off to you for getting a deal!

Justin
www.dawbox.com (http://www.dawbox.com)

[drstringlove]

No, you are right that there has to be a dummy, there is one on the board, I actually had a chance to open the package and take a look. And I don't have it running yet, I'm still shopping for the parts, I wanted a pentium to experiment with. I've got a working system ASUS A7m266 and AMD XP1700 that I can use while I mess with this. I'm currently running a HOONTECH DSP 2000 (or STaudio if you prefer) It seems to work pretty well, though I've had some inexplicable driver problems. Do you have any experience with the Promise ATA controller that is native to this motherboard?

[dawboxpro]

The a7M266 was a great board!!! That one will be a classic!

Justin