P4 1.8A question

[Heihachi]

My friend got a free 1.8A 400FSB CPU from his brother...

He was curious on what the best price/performance motherboard and ram he should get that would justify itself.

Any suggestions?

[Showtime]

Any decent 512 DDR 2700+ stick should work or matching dual 256 sticks for dual channel boards.

Is he going to oc it?

What kind of features is he looking for? USB 2, sound, lan, etc?

Best performance to dollar ratio is that Albatron PX845PEV Pro i845PE for under $90.

Ultimate perfomance was the Abit IT7max2 and before that the Asus 845 in different flavors. The current champs are the new boards that run dual channel ddr. They will also be ready to upgrade if he decides to buy a new ht p4.

I have an Epox 4G4A and a 1.8a at 2.7ghz. Posted at 2.8ghz. Was a $200 package at frys a couple of months ago. Has everything I need and is stable.

-jel:halo:

[Heihachi]

If he's going just a regular single channel setup do you think that Crucial 512MB CL2.5 RAM isn't good enough?

he price for any decent PC2700 RAM is about double so I don't want to have him bother. Plus I'm not sure if he's going to be interested in DUAL CHANNEL.

He's also not looking for a feature rich board, so any barebone chipset would do.

[Heihachi]

wow.. those reviews on newegg for the albatron sound very promising... I just might throw that on my own lap...

[sbp]

Originally posted by chosenfool
always keep in mind HEADROOM.

mobo choice - intel's 845PE chipset, has HT support and DDR333, it gets you ready for HT capable chips in the future, and the RAM bandwidth cant be beat (i prefer ASUS, as time and again, ive gotten better more stable OCs than any other mobo). UNtil the dual-channel DDR chipsets actually get DDR333 support im holding back from it. SiS already have it, but im waiting til intel puts its own forward, and compare the performance of both.

get corsair DDR400 (PC3200), my own preference. You can get away with PC2700 RAM , but like i said, HEADROOM. if you end up overclocking and upping the FSB (And its tied in to the RAM speed) you dont want your RAM to be a bottleneck. I'm also waiting. Won't be long now until Springdale and Canterwood hit. :hihi: