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What's the most highly rated dual P3 motherboard right now?

J

Juranda

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I'm interested in upgrading one of my boxes sometime soon, and exploring options. I also wanna grab a couple of new processors around 700-800 since I think they're around 200-250ish now...?

Thanks.
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"Into the darkness, into the light."
 
wow.. a really tough question to answer right now cuz none of the motherboard chipsets have a very good advantage over each other.. each has it's own flaws...

i820/i840 - you have to get Rambus Ram or a riser card which is like an adapter for you to plug in SDRAM

ah.. Via Apollo Pro - Uh.. just not a good chipset.. doesn't use the p3 to it's full potiential.. among other more subtle problems...

and the BX, most hardware sites are recommending that you set the bus of the BX to 133Mhz, but you'd have to adjust the agp ratio to 2/3 which makes the gfx card lose some performance...

i'd wait until a new chipset is released and see how it fares.. I believe that Via has one lined up within 2-3 months.

PS: Disel Dan i'm sure will provide you w/ more detailed info as soon as he sees this thread
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I'm pretty much in agreement with much of your post, with the exception of the comment about the VIA Apollo Pro.
Provided that you have the Pro 133A chipset, performance isn't THAT bad. However, it's a moot point, since VIA doesn't currently offer the Pro 133A chipset in a dual config.

My current recommendation would probably be a BX board, since it has the fewest shortcomings. However, that's hardly a stellar recommendation.

My experience tells me that the next good SMP board will NOT come from Intel, since they insist on shoving RAMBUS down everyone's throats, instead of going with the much more logical DDRSDRAM. Once VIA releases an SMP capable chipset that mobo manufactures implement, things will get cooking. Unfortunately, I think we're not going to see a chipset for the P3 come out of AMD, since they're devoting full support to the Athlon (might want to look into a dual-Athlon setup once they release a SMP capable chipset).

Keep in mind that you don't double your system performance by adding another CPU. Even on programs that take advantage of SMP, you only get about a 70%-85% performance boost, generally. Add more processors, and the returns diminish further.
I'd honestly recommend that you go with a very fast single-CPU solution. Use the money you save on the motherboard and extra processor, and get a kick-**** video card and load the mutha up with RAM.

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I am Jack's raging inner child. Without me, Jack has to deal with the pitfalls of reality.
 
I think it depends on what you want to use your system for. Keep in mind, that SMP is more similar to tractor pulling than it is to drag racing. You will be able to do a LOT more at the same time, but it won't necessarily get done any faster. Also keep in mind that Win98 won't even see the second processor, so if you're planning on using a Windows OS, you'll have to use NT or Win 2K. I have no idea whether WinME will do SMP or not.

Now, for the recommendation, Asus P2BDS (onboard U2W SCSI controller) or the SuperMicro P6DBU (onboard U2W SCSI)

If you're seriously considering SMP, I'd search ebay for those motherboards. For speed and stability, both are top drawer.

Hope that helps,
Ski Bum
 
Since WinME is slated for consumer use and is an extension/continuation of the Win9x line, it will not support SMP.

If you want SMP from a Microsoft OS, it's NT/2000. Of course, Linux fully supports SMP...
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I am Jack's raging inner child. Without me, Jack has to deal with the pitfalls of reality.
 
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