motherboard chipset

[mrzeeedler]

If your not looking into overclocking get an intel motherboard they are the most stable for pentium 4 have not had a single problem with one. Now if your looking to overclocking later then get an Asus motherboard. The northwood, prescott are the cpu core. The architecture design. Prescott runs hotter and northwood runs cooler. below 3.0 ghz northwood is better after 3.0 prescott is better. Odd if you ask me.

intel D865GBFL is the motherboard you were looking at and its a good motherboard. If you want something with on board video get that. If you have a video card then get a d865perl.

 

[Dunadan1821]

Thanks. I wont be overclocking this one because I am building it for a family member. But I am going to be making one for myself that I will overclock. I think I will be getting the d865perl so I can put a good vid card in.

 

[zerozero]

The 865 PERL is a good card (mine) very stable. SATA capable, firewire and integrated audio (that's your ICH5). The audio card is excellent. I did a lot of reading on that card before I bought it and they all said that it was better than the 875 for the price. You can even overclock it (very slightly). Further more, if you go to Intel page, you can download an application which is the Intel desktop control centre which gives you memory and cpu usage and tweak capabilities which is useful if you don't know your way around BIOS too much. Like most new MOBO, you can upgrade your chipset easily directly from windows etc... If you don't plan on overclocking, I strongly recommend it.

 

[Apokalipse]

sockets:
'A' = Duron, Athlon, Athlon XP = "K7"
478 = P4 and Celeron
754 = Athlon 64 = "K8"
939/940 = Athlon 64/Opteron = "K8"

Athlon XP's have 266, 333 and 400MHZ FSB's
P4's have 400, 533 and 800MHZ FSB's
Athlon 64's and opterons have 800 and 1600MHZ FSB's

it's true that Northwood 2.8 and 3GHZ CPU's outperform the prescott equivalent, but the 3.2GHZ prescott is better; Prescott is designed to run better at higher frequencies

for price verses performance I would go with an Athlon XP 2500+ to 2800+ Barton (but not a 2700+ as they only have 333MHZ FSB's and don't come in Barton)