Asus P4c800E deluxe / Abit IC7-Max III?

Ok thinking of changing and upgrading my mobo from ASus P4s8X (putting it in my sisters pc), and thinking about the ASUS P4c800 E deluxe (with either the 865 PE or 875P chipset) or the Abit IC7- MAx III mobo.

I want to reuse my P4 processor, and preferably my ram pc3200 OCZ 512 MB, I have 2x 258 pc2700 OCZ as well but aim to replace these with PC3200. Also IBM deskstar 120 GBx2, Western Digital 200 GB 8MB cache, Seagate 80 GB HDD on board. Run with a Qtechnology 400 W psu.

The pc is mainly for video encoding/editing, hardly ever game with it.

Any comments??

Also does anyone know if you can combine dual channel ddr with single channel - my current PC3200 I think is single channel.

Thanks

Both of those boards are excellent boards, i don't know if you are aware of the Abit situation with some financial irregularities going on, i've not heard any confirmation that this has been fixed. But its my only doubt about going a-bit at the moment.

Yet i've been an ABit fan for years, I've got the Original IC7 and its been a great board, the IC7 Max 3 is just later improved revisions, but i also know 2 people with the ASUS board both of whom have been very happy with it.

My choice at the moment would be the Asus, but thats just my scepticism when it comes to financial irregularities with companies...

TiG

Thanks for the info. Will then probably go for the Asus, seemed to be little in it. Heard though somewhere that the Asus had some memory problems but then again on the Tomhardwhere site read a review where the Asus was the one that came out the cleanest with different memory banks..... so I guess there is not much in it in reality.

By the way, any recommendations for a more powerful quiet PSU?

i think the 865 chip asus is meant to be just as good as the 875 one. The 875 has some memory technology i think but it doesn't seem to do much in reviews.

I'd recommend the Asus over the Abit - though theres not a lot in it - the Asus is slightly more stable. I've built about 8 PCs here at work based off it, and they've all been absolutely solid - not a single hardware related crash.

Have you also considered the DFI Lan Party 875B? - only used one, but it was very, very good.

The P4C800-E is of very good quality, it doesn't use post, but pre-recorded voice messages that tell you what the problem is etc and if u mess up an overclock or bios settings then u can just boot up the original bios that came with the cd.

I got better results with the ASUS than I did the abit. That and it's a quieter board.

Ok thanks guys I think I will go for the Asus, not decided which chip probably the 875 (still deciding on chip).

The next question though is Memory, I have 258Mbx2 OCZ PC2700 and 512Mbx1 single channel OCZ PC3200. So I will give the 258 to my sisters pc, but was thinking about keeping the 512Mb. Now I wish to fill the remaining slots (or at least one of them) should I go for another single channel 512 PC3200 or maybe dual channel - I am not sure if you can combine single and dual channel modules at the same time.

.....
Edit, was looking at reviews and saw one for the Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Ultra-64 board with PCI-X. Have not seen this head to head with the Asus so was wondering if anyone knew how it compared with the latest asus extreme boards. Any thoughts?