I'm looking at the Intel D875PBZLK and the ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboards. Any advice on which is better for Vegas, video capture, etc.?

I'm not sure about which is better for Vegas, but I stay away from Asus. I had a real problem with the one board I bought, and I could never get through to their tech support, or get the problem fixed.

I hope this will save some headaches down the road.

I'm not sure about Vegas as well. However, I would not under estimate or rule out ASUS. The P4C800 has been officially certified by Matrox to be used with their high-end RT-X100 capture card.

I'm in the process of having a system built with this same ASUS card, the P4C800 Deluxe (see configuration below). If there's any problems I'll update in the next week or so when my system arrives. Heard nothing but good things about ASUS.



SOFTWARE
Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe After Effects 6, Adobe Encore DVD, Adobe Audidtion.

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION
Case - Supermicro 600 watt rack mount
Motherboard - Asus P4C800 Deluxe w/800 FSB
Processor - Pentium 4 3.0GHz
RAM - 1GB DDR PC3200 Memory
Hard Drives - Three (3) Maxtor 200GB 7,200 RPM 8MB Buffer
Capture Card - Matrox RT.X100 Extreme Pro
Video Card - Matrox Parhelia 128MB
DVD - Pioneer DVRA06
CD-RW - Teac 52x24x52xDVD Player
Sound Card - Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Modem - US Robotics 56K Internal
ADS Pyro 3 Port Firewire Board
Windows XP Professional

I'm getting a spec together with a company here in the UK using, I must say, almost to a letter, the exact same config. . . . I'll be using Vegas4.0d on it.

Over on the SonyVegas forum, one chap has had a problem getting the onboard f/w on the MoBo to play ball. He has had to use the PYRO card to get f/w in out - go figure . . hope this helps you Ken .

I'll be interested to hear your feedback regarding, as I say, almost the same config - albeit for Premmi . . yeah?

Grazie

ken, the same matrox as this?

http://www.matroxusers.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=44959

Graham - That's interesting about the same exact configuration over in the UK. That tells me this MOBO has been thoroughly tested and certified. As far as the PYRO firewire card goes, I'll be putting it through a gamut of tests to insure maximum stability. I’ll update you if/when I have any issues.

Yi Fong – The card I was referring to is the RT-X100 Video Capture Card not the Parhelia. The Parhelia is one of the “standards” in high-end NLE systems. You’re obviously disappointed with this card due to its lack of DirectX 9 support. To me, this is a non-issue as my primary purpose is NLE and not shooting planes out of the sky.

oh no, it's not me that worry about such stuff. never used matrox and don't plan to. i'm an ATI guy. i'm just wondering that a company that promises something but doesn't deliver later on and retraces its steps is the kind of company that i wanna deal with. that's all =^).

Yi Fong Yu ! - What, in the name of all that is Hieroglyphic is =^).

. . . please please tell me . .


Grazie

A smiley face with a nose? (tilt your head 90 degrees)

Got It! - Hah!!

:D

Original question:
I'm looking at the Intel D875PBZLK and the ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboards. Any advice on which is better for Vegas, video capture, etc.?


I am also debating over the same MB's except I also have the

865PE Neo2-FIS2R in my equation.....

Ultimately I feel the Intel d875pbzlk may be the preffered option?

Only because the PC shop near me...Tokyo Akihabara use it for there base MB...for Video editing setups...nice showroom too!

I asked why and they said something about the pci card...well Im just a begginer...any thoughts....

Cheers,

Lincoln

The Intel D875PBZLK is Intel's current best, from what I've heard. It is preferable if you are using a Pentium 4 chip with a 800Mhz FSB along with DDR400 memory. You may be able to even get away with using the Intel 865PE-chipset mobo.

I don't think you can go wrong with an Intel board. If you like their processors, you should like their boards, too. I will soon either be upgrading my current PC with the 875P board or purchasing a new computer with the 875P.

For what it's worth, I went with the Intel D875PBZLK for the new desktop system I'm getting.

The Intel boards have the least configuration problems. All the hardware vendors make sure their stuff works with the Intel board. With the other board you might get some weird incompatibilities (maybe a certain hardware card doesn't work in certain PCI slots??????). newegg.com reviews will show you the kinds of problems people are having with non-Intel boards. On the other hand, non-Intel boards can offer better bang for the buck.

Quite a few of the non-Intel 865P boards have PAT enabled (performance boosting feature). The main advantage the 875P boards have over 865P is that they have PAT.

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.html?i=1831&p=30

Well I don't have the practical experience but everything on the net concerning motherboards usually lacks reviews on Intel boards .

Why? Simply I think they keep close to their own standard which shouldn't favour overclocking. Why Intel will show to the common user that instead of buying P4 3.2 for 400$ he can buy 2.6 for 200 and reach simmilar performance?

All hardware reviews show makers using Intel chipset drawing much more potential from the system - it includes BIOS settings flexibility, etc., etc.

Now Intel conforms to the standard - lets say 200 MHz FSB. Then Gigabyte would be 201.5, while MSI may be 204 by default. That immediately leads to higher scores for this board over Intel but in general chipset is same and performance of all makers doesn't differ more than 5%. Let's say if you wait for render with Intel 5 minutes it'll be done by Asus for 4:54 - Asus is the winner!!!

Here has to be said not everything is in a single component. If your HD or memory are low quality they will be the botleneck, not the MoBo.

Asus or Abit will give the entusiast the ultimate power to tweak and overclock. MSI seems not so good for hard overclocking but they will allow dynamic overclocking through Windows (not BIOS) up to 10% which will be very easy for not advanced users to get higher performance.

And finally as I mentioned the MoBo itself is not everything so if you go with vendor (not building by yourself) you can be sure they know what they do. If Intell is their chose don't push them to change it as they are acustomed and trouble free with what they use in their regular systems.

I might be wrong but just wanted to say my opinion from what I've learnt recently.

<<<-- Originally posted by Bogdan Vaglarov : Well I don't have the practical experience but everything on the net concerning motherboards usually lacks reviews on Intel boards .

Why? Simply I think they keep close to their own standard which shouldn't favour overclocking. Why Intel will show to the common user that instead of buying P4 3.2 for 400$ he can buy 2.6 for 200 and reach simmilar performance?

All hardware reviews show makers using Intel chipset drawing much more potential from the system - it includes BIOS settings flexibility, etc., etc.
-->>>


Actually, the "Bonanza" (as the D875PBZLK is called) allows for overclocking (called Burn-In Mode) -- a first for Intel. From what I understand (I will try and find and cite my source this evening when I get home) it doesn't let you make major adjustments, but it does allow for minor overclocking -- sort of like overclocking with a safety net.

That said, I feel that overclocking is for gamers and tweakers, not for serious video work. Overclocking requires extra special and extra careful cooling (ever see the Screen Savers episode where they had to cool the CPU with liquid nitrogen?) and can cause instability in some cases. If you are doing serious video work, why would you want to have to deal with these variables when trying to meet a deadline? Equipment that "conforms to standards" is very good when you need it to be reliable -- just ask any Mac user (they'll talk your ear off for ages!) Just my 2-cents.

The Anandtech roundup of various mobos (including Intel's) says this:
UPDATE 6/13/2003 We forgot to mention that there are, in fact, some FSB tuning options available in the D875PBZ's BIOS through a "Burn-In" mode option. The adjustments are only available as high as 4% of the FSB in 1% increments however. AGP/PCI adjustments are available as well, up to 73.60MHz/36.80MHz.

4% overclocking... haha.


Overclocking can save you quite some time by improving rendering speeds. A 20% improvement in speed would reduce a 6 hour render by one hour. Stability can be tested after you make changes and you can get extra margin by not trying to get that last 100mhz. Air cooling isn't that hard to do (you can even get with stock cooling). But you can definitely get along fine with a stock system.

An Intel board should be a good choice for a stock system. It's going to be the most compatible board out there.

Exactly!
Well said Glenn - just confirming my thoughts.

Just b/c I said i would...here's what I was citing off the top of my head: "Outfitted to appeal to the moderate tweaker, Intel has included a burn-in mode that's really just an overclocking switch. Sure the feature offers just a 5% overclock, and the switch doesn't let you juice up your voltage, but that protect nut cases from frying their CPUs, and maybe that's for the best." Maximum PC Magazine, "Build the Perfect PC," Fall 2003

Glenn, you are right about improving render times and increasing stability, but personally that's just not a chance I'll take. I feel fairly comfortable handling the hardware in my PC, but when someone comes to me needing an ad that has to be completed within less than 24 hours (as seems to happen often recently), I want stabilty -- and for me that means I'll buy the fastest CPU and most memory I can afford and work with that. Of course, you know what they say opinions are like... :)

Ken,

just a bit more about Matrox. I'm with Yi Fong Yu on this one.

They may have a nice mid range video card now in the RTX100, but they have stopped a lot of support for their high end Digisuite range (at many thousands of dollars a pop) without offering a replacement. I can assure you that people who spend that sort of money on video hardware are _seriously_ underimpressed by that sort of behaviour.

I know. I have a Digisuite DTV card, with no Premiere Pro support.

I won't buy Matrox again - video or graphics. Decklink anybody?

Regards,

Julian