Opinions Invited on S478 Motherboard

[scaryjim]

with the CPUs you listed that'd be pretty much spot on £40, and again it'd be buying more used components when I already have used components lying around. At that point I might as well buy some thing like this bundle from ebuyer which would get me a reasonable brand new processor and motherboard. I've watched a few component auctions, and even ones marked "untested" or "spares / repair" tend to go for pretty high prices. And as I've recently found out to my cost, motherboards are not a reliable used item to buy (unlike CPUs and memory, which seem to take a lot of mistreatment and still work fine!)...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A Celeron M 430 or an E2140 does tend to be bit faster than a Celeron D 335 or a 3200+ AFAIK!!

The motherboard I linked too does have a 30 day guarantee though.

The bundle uses DDR and not DDR2 BTW!!

However if you want peace of mind then I suppose getting a brand new motherboard is the best way forward.

[scaryjim]

A Celeron M 430 or an E2140 does tend to be bit faster than a Celeron D 335 or a 3200+ AFAIK!!

...

The bundle uses DDR and not DDR2 BTW!! ...

Good points both The Athlon 64 3200+ would be quite a bit faster than the Celly D 345 though. And I do actually have some DDR lying around in the big ol' box 'o bits

The bottom line for me is that I don't *really* have the money for this. I still haven't decided yay or nay for *any* upgrade, but I *definitely* can't afford to go a penny over the £36.50 Microdirect are charging for the Biostar mobo.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The bottom line for me is that I don't *really* have the money for this. I still haven't decided yay or nay for *any* upgrade, but I *definitely* can't afford to go a penny over the £36.50 Microdirect are charging for the Biostar mobo.

I know the feeling myself too as my Shuttle rebuild is also constrained by funds too.

[Pob255]

Sorry Jim, it's agp and ddr1

You'll also have a lot of issues with many of the 478 boards as many of them where rather dodgy
The number of the 478 systems dieing at work atm is quite high and almost all of them with motherboard issues.

[scaryjim]

Thanks for looking. I might have to give up on the hunt for motherboards to bundle all my spare bits with, and just resell the bits as they are. Seems a shame when I've gone to some effort to acquire odds and ends to match into working systems, but finding motherboards at anything like a reasonable price is pretty tricky...

[Pob255]

Well the problem is you're looking at the end of the 478, there where never that many 478 boards with ddr2 and pci-e the majority are ddr1 and agp.
When the 478 ddr2 & pci-e came out the newer socket 775 (pre core2) was out which used both.

[Behemoth]

Myself and a friend had aquired quite a few PC parts like you had scaryjim. It was quite ironic that we both decided to put together a few systems between us as his inlaws needed some basic system for just web browsing and word.

Ironically all the parts I was hoarding, mainly socket A mobo's had gone to sleep in the time that I'd left them in my garage in boxes over the years. I did find the odd one or two of them would power up and post, even install an OS but when you put them under any stress they would crash at the first opportunity.

So right about now I've got a job lot of athlon XP CPU's which work perfectly fine, and load of DDR 1 ram with no boards to put them on. My mate is in the same boat with P4 stuff, while back in the day he was the intel snob, I was the AMD fan boy.

I've no ran out of AGP GFX cards too. That however is another story for another thread lol.

[scaryjim]

for resale bundles I'd actually be looking at DDR1 (or even SDR) and integrated graphics, but that's another story entirely. This thread is about me skimming the cream off the top of my spare parts to create a half-decent low-profile mATX box!

But working mobos do seem to be the issue. I picked up a job lot of SDRAM (15 sticks) that just came packed in a box with no antistatic or bubblewrap or anything, but every single stick will at least pass a POST check and boot into a linux live CD. Of the motherboards I've picked up cheap, one has been working so far... *sigh*

[Behemoth]

I think its all down to the fact now that the tech of that age is now way beyond its shelf life, and fails because of old age. The only sure fire way of getting one thats going to work is going to be something thats brand new in a box, and then your looking at paying silly money for old tech.

[scaryjim]

... then your looking at paying silly money for old tech.

Or £36.50 for a PCIe & DDR2 supporting board

I still haven't made a final decision, but I think I may well go for this. From the reviews I've seen the Celly Ds overclock pretty well, and I've spotted an interesting (low profile) s478 cooler that should help keep the CPU cool and vent the hot air straight out of the chassis - so I just need to see how high I can push the 8400GS's shader clock and start benching! Fastest low profile Celeron D system ever...?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

so I just need to see how high I can push the 8400GS's shader clock

My 8500GT could be overclocked to around 700MHZ(from 459MHZ) for the core and 1400MHZ(from 918MHZ) for the shaders with a Sytrin VF1:

http://forums.hexus.net/graphics-car...es-8500gt.html

[scaryjim]

I've just downloaded the manual for the BioStar mobo and it has async CPU and PCIe clocks and allows you to ramp the CPU clock as high as 400MHZ!!! It also allows full manual control of DRAM timings. Looks like it could be a great mATX s478 overclocking board! I have to say I'm surprised at how featureful the BIOS looks... I think I've finally talked myself into doing this!

[scaryjim]

It gets better: while looking for some details on the PSU today (to see if it might be worth swapping the fan for a temperature controlled one), I discovered that the case's airflow is specifically designed to work with a 70mm side-blowing Socket 478 cooler - the exact type I've just ordered for the build! It was clearly meant to be I'll probably drop into Microdirect on the way home tomorrow to pick the board up...

[jim]

It was clearly meant to be

It's guaranteed to end in tears now

[scaryjim]

It's guaranteed to end in tears now

We'll see soon - scaryjim haz new motherboard and s478 HSF