Motherboard needed
 

I'm upgrading my pc and would like know the best choice of motherboards. I have narrow it down between Abit and Asus.
I will be doing video editing and want to get a really decent model. Possibilities for lots of ram, ATA-133-200, dual processors, 800mhz buss speed support as well as any other features that is crucial for video editing.
Any takers?

If you want dual prcessors, go with Tyan. Other than that, I would recommend Abit- AVOID Asus!

While my Abit KG7 Raid board was kind of quirky, once I got it set up right, it's been rock solid. There are some soft menu options you will need to change, and some cards need to be positioned in certain slots.

Asus, on the other hand, has been highly recommended by many people. However, those were the ones fortunate to have a good board. Those who have problems with Asus products, will find zero support, a website that has no answers, and forums that are usually down.

At least Abit has a great forum for finding answers, and good tech support. I think that is the most important part of any product.

Thanks but isn't this board supprorts only AMD? I'm for P4 support only.

I myself, have been a huge fan of AMD. Over the past several years, I have only had problems with one processor out of 4. Even though the retailer refused to do anything about it a year later, AMD sent me a new replacement, no hassels. My other two PCs are still running their original 3 and 4 year old AMDs

As far as what board supports what, I believe they all have boards for Pentiums.

Thanks but I want to stick with P4's only.

Charles I don't think you will find a board for dual P4s. If you want dual processors you'll have to go with Xeons.

Anyone has this board: Abit BE7-RAID Moderkort S478/533mhz ?

Adrian is correct, P4 does not support dual configurations. For that you will need Xeons, and the FSB is 533MHz max.

I have two Asus boards and love 'em. Their website is almost useless but the newsgroups have lots of activity and several knowledgeable posters. Asus is known for reliability and is always a top rated board.

Rob- It's hard for me to argue with many satisfied Asus users... Except that I've been using a bad Asus board for 3 years now. I'm still using it, because I could never get any reply from Asus. I tried their site, and got nothing. I tried e-mailing them several times over a period, and got no response. I tried calling, long distance overseas, and there was no answer.

I did eventually get one reply e mail. It said to ship them my board, and they would look at it. Then, if they felt it was due to their error, they would send me another board if they couldn't fix it. I was not about to yank the MB out of my only PC at the time, wait who knows how long, for them to "Maybe" send a replacement. It took well over a year to get any response from them in the first place. I say, if that is the best they got for service, I'll go with another brand.

Thanks for the reply guys. Alright then. Any particular model of abit or Asus I should go for that seems to work to the T?

I use a Abit IT7 Max2 V.2 for my NLE..Its very solid. I can use Premiere/Photoshop/AE/Vegas. For hours on end without a crash. Infact I moved to this board after going through atleast 15 system AMD and Intel within about 4 months. I was trying to find a setup that worked flawlessly with my Matrox RT2500.
I also use a Abit BE7 for my other PC and its quite good as well. But full a full featured RAID board my money is on the IT7 Max 2. Although I will warn you its a Legacy free board. That means no Serial or parallel ports....Its all USB and Firewire.
I currently run that system as the following

Abit IT7 Max 2 V.2
Intel P4 2.4C @ 3.24 gHz
1.5 gig Corsair PC3200 Low Latency Matched Ram
Matrox G550
Matrox RT2500
M-Audio Delta Audiophile 24/96

I would recommend this board too anyone who is looking for a full featured 845PE Motherboard. If your interested in a 875P then try the Abit IC7 Max.

Thanks Scott. I'll take a look into it. I see it has support for a raid setup. I read that it also has a controller card for ata-150 support. Another thing. How do you find the integrated sound card?
Being an all usb and firewire connectors, I guess one could still get an adapter to fit present keyboard and mouse units to be able to connect them to the USB sockets, right?
There's also the Abit IS7-G motherboard with 800mhz, if that should make a difference.

Scott,

how do you find the overclocked P4? Is it still stable, was the performance increase worth the risk and heat increase? I tessed with overclocked PIII for video editing but it was too unstable. I pushed a PIII 667 to around 900 and the performance increase was good with only a smalle but controllable heat increase. It was stable for simple rendering tasks but as soon as I had more than 3 layers it got unstable.

Has anyone got experience of Tyan mobos?

I'm having difficulty sourcing the Abit WI-2P here. I could get the Asus PP-DLW, but I've been bitten by Asus before.

Tyan seem to have a pretty good performance reputation. I was wondering what their reliability was like.