AOpen AX4C MAX II or Asus P4C800-E Deluxe for Matrox RT.x100 ?

[Danny Egan]

Allright so I'm building a system for a Matrox RT.x100 and I was wondering which motherboard most of you suggest to build it around?

I'm pretty sure I have it down to either the AOpen AX4C MAX II or Asus P4C800-E Deluxe.
They both look like great boards and have pretty much the same specs. The only thing pointing me more towards the AOpen is that I've been reading that the Promise controller on the Asus is causing major memory problems when it's enabled. That is if I'm understanding the posts right at AnandTech. With that said, should I go with the AOpen, or would its Promise controller cause probs too?
If both of those boards have probs with there Promise controller and I wouldn't be able to put them to use, would the Intel D865PERL be the next best choice?

I really appreaciate any help as researching this is giving me massive headaches.

Thanks,
Danny Egan
www.FIDesigns.com

[Glenn Chan]

Go for the motherboard that WILL be compatible with the matrox card. A lot of folks have incompatibility problems with hardware acceleration cards for Premiere. I suggest you ask around to figure out the recipes that work. Then copy it. Stability is much more important the the minor differences between two non-Intel motherboards.

My guess is that Intel is the most likely to work with the Matrox card in question.

2- 865 vs 875 chipset: The 875 chipset has a feature called PAT that effectively lowers memory latency. Memory latency makes no difference for video editing. Also, many non-Intel montherboards have a BIOS option to enable PAT. So go for the cheaper 865 chipset motherboards.

And even if you could enable PAT, it may not be worth the effort doing so. You also need to test your computer for stability. The 865 chipsets are the lower quality chipsets (Intel is probably speed binning them) and may not always have PAT.

3- I think the posts refer the running a RAID with the promise-brand RAID controller. I was too lazy to read through all the posts. In any case, forget about RAID as you don't need (or even want) it. If you wanted to RAID, I'd use the ICH5 RAID (which is built into the 865/875 Intel chipset).

4- firewire on your motherboard would be nice. I don't know if that Intel board has firewire.

[Arnaldo Paixao]

http://www.matrox.com/video/support/rtx100xtremepro/rec/mb/asus_p4c800_deluxe.cfm


Best regards,
Arnaldo

[Mike Rehmus]

<<<-- Originally posted by Glenn Chan : snip

My guess is that Intel is the most likely to work with the Matrox card in question.

2- 865 vs 875 chipset: The 875 chipset has a feature called PAT that effectively lowers memory latency. Memory latency makes no difference for video editing. Also, many non-Intel montherboards have a BIOS option to enable PAT. So go for the cheaper 865 chipset motherboards.
-------------------------------

I disagree only because the Asus board (with that chip), if chosen has the gigabit Intel LAN setup and it requires much less attention from the processor than the non-E board . Makes it a much better choice than the 865-chipped boards from that standpoint alone. In fact, the E version Asus was developed exactly because the 865 chip was a poor performer.

In any case, I would go look at the Matrox list of compatible hardware before I bought part 1.

-->>>

[Danny Egan]

Thanks for the replies ppl. Well the thing is I know for sure all 3 boards I listed are compatiable with the Matrox card. I was just worried about the probs with the Promise controller card but I think I got it figured out and I'm going with the Asus.

Danny

[Danny Egan]

What do yall suggest for a processor? Intel Prescott vs Northwood? I know I want a 3.2ghz and spec wise the Prescott should be better with a 1mb cache but from what I have been hearing it scores the same on benchmarks amd sometimes even lower. Is this correct?

Thanks,
Danny

[Mike Rehmus]

I've gone with the Northwood for both my ht processors. Less heat and they work OK.

[Glenn Chan]

Spec-wise the Prescott has a longer pipeline which makes them slower. Intel doesn't tell you that.

2- Most hardware sites like anandtech.com show the Northwood is faster, but that applies to things like games and not to video. No idea which is actually faster.

The Northwood runs cooler and consumes less electricity, which makes it cheaper and your computer quieter. You also don't have to worry about the Presscott hitting really hit temps and then throttling to 50% speed (which slows performance of course).

The Prescott has the SSE3 instruction set, which can give it a speed boost in the future when programs are written to take advantage of them. From what I've heard encoding apps can take advantage of these optimizations.

[Danny Egan]

Thanks Glenn...I think I'm leaning towards the Northwood cuz I don't want to have a load of vans to keep things cold...I'm trying to keep things quiet...thats why I'm going with the Antec Sontana case. That reminds me...will the PSU (380W) that comes with that case be powerful enough for my system...

Asus P4C800-E Deluxe
P4 3.2ghz Northwood
1gb ddram dual chan
3 WD 7200 rpm ide hard drives
nVidia MX4000
Matrox RT.x100
some random dvd-rom

Also, is the heatsink/fan that comes with the p4 good enough AND QUIET or should I get a different one?

Thanks again for all the help...this msg board is great...

~Danny

[Glenn Chan]

A quality 380W PSU from a brand name like Antec should be more than enough. silentpcreview.com did some tests where they measured max power draw and found that a gaming hotrod (with a power-hungry highend video card) would draw around 230W in the most extreme circumstances.

Your computer looks fine.

2- Is the retail heatsink/fan good enough?
silentpcreview.com has a review of the Presscot fan. When I bought a 3.0"C" (northwood) for work, it came with that kind of fan. If the retail fan isn't quiet enough then get a zalman 7000alcu.

see http://www.silentpcreview.com/article30-page1.html