The 845PE chipset motherboards, such as the Tyan Trinity S2099 do not
officially support a 200mhz (800mhz quad pumped) front side bus, which the
P4 2.4C you are interested in requires.  There is another P4 2.4 that does
run on the 166mhz (533mhz quad pumped) front side bus, but it isn't the one
you are looking at buying.

There are some 845PE motherboards that the manufacturers claim do support a
200mhz front side bus, unofficially.  But, I don't see Tyan making any such
claims for their board.

You would probably be better off looking for a motherboard based on the 865E
chipset.  This is basically the same chipset as the 875E, except that it
lacks official support for some enhanced memory timings (Performance
Acceleration Technology or PAT) found in the 875E motherboards.  The 865E
boards also use regular DDR SDRAM, while the 875E boards require ECC or
error correction DDR SDRAM.  The 865E and 875E motherboard both support dual
channel DDR, which provides more memory bandwidth than the single channel
845PE DDR memory configuration.  P4s are designed to use a lot of memory
bandwidth.

There are a lot of 865E motherboards to choose from.  Each manufacturer
offers two, three, or even more models distinguished by the number of extra
features included.  Simply visit NewEggs site (www.newegg.com) and do a
search for 865E (or use handy Advanced Search feature to be found on their
Motherboard, Intel page and select Intel 8265PE Northbridge chipset).  This
will give you a good idea of what is available.  As you can see, there is
plenty to choose from in the $90 to $125 range.  I suspect boards from any
of the big makers (Asus, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte) or even the second tier
manufacturers (Albatron, DFI) will be more alike, than different, so shop by
price and features.  Maybe try and find an online review of a board or two,
after you've narrowed your search.

When it comes to cases, I tend to prefer the Antec cases, since many of
their models come with Antec's own brand of power supplies, which are
considered to be of very good quality.  This makes the overall package of an
Antec case and an Antec power supply a good value.  The Antec SLK3700AMB
would be a good choice for your system, since it comes with a 350w power
supply, which is about the minimum I would recommend these days, with
typical systems now using more power hungry processors, motherboards, video
cards hard drives, and CD burners.  I would be wary of the power supplies
included with cases of other case makers.  You can always buy a case without
a power supply and get the power supply separately.  Antec and Enermax are
high quality power supplies.  Fortron, KingWin, and ThermalTake also offer
some pretty good power supplies.

When comparing power supplies, don't just look at the overall power rating.
Look at what each rail (3.3v, 5v, and 12v) is rated for and especially look
at what the combined 3.3 and 5v rail is rated for.  This is where you'll see
significant differences between better quality power supplies compared to
the not so good power supplies, even though they might both be claiming to
be 350w power supplies (for example).

As far as online venders go, I've had good luck with NewEgg, Directron,
Essential Computer, Multiwave, Memory Man, Mushkin, and GoogleGear.
Directron is one of the few vendors that offers the option to upgrade the
power supply that comes in the cases that they sell.

HTH to get you started.

John


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mandi Wilson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2003 5:13 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] CPU and mobo compatability


Pentium 4 2.4GHZ 800 bus 478 Pin, 512k Cache, 800Mhz FSB. Mfr#:
BX80532PG2400D P4/800 retail Box $219

Is the above CPU a 'Northwood'?

Does the below board support the above processor? Notice the board says
400MHz and 533MHz  Or do I absolutely have to have a board that says it
supports 800MHz?

Trinity i845E (S2099)
• Supports one Pentium 4 processor including "Northwood"
• Supports 400MHz and 533MHz Front-Side Bus
•  Four 184-pin DIMM sockets support up to 2GB of DDR RAM
• Five 32-bit 33MHz PCI expansion slots; AGP Pro50 slot

If the above won't work, please tell me some motherboards to choose from?
The brand name and model number also please :) It doesn't have to be 875
chipset

I'm doing an archive search in PCBuild and it looks like I must use a board
that says 800MHz FSB on it for this CPU?

And if that isn't too many questions for one email, can you all send me some
URLs for cases too? :)

Thanks,

Mandi

                         PCBUILD's List Owners:
                      Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
                       Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>

                  Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
               articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
                          http://freepctech.com