Legit Reviews

i have a spare P4 chip, and i'm looking for a motherboard that supports it AS WELL AS a PCIE x16 card (so i can swap out cards once i upgrade mine)

now i've found a Biostar one on newegg: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6813138079

my concern is the chipset. anyone remember VIA P4M900 ? as long as it isn't horrible i'll be okay.
my brother is going to need a PC for college and our family PC is on the way out, so it's up to my brother whether or not he's going to buy a laptop or if he's going to want to take this new rig along.

also, i've got to know what HSF would be the best for this processor (pentium 4)
3.33GHZ/1M/533
SL7X5 MALAY
L436A891

thanks for the interest

pretty slim pick'ns on the egg... I picked up an Matsonic 478 off ebay last month or so. there is a pretty good selection of "new" 478 mobos there.

slim pickins indeed, i'm trying to get a grasp of if that board is worth they $, especially considering that i have no clue about that chipset and the fact that it has no onboard firewire

Interesting board, PCIe, S478, and DDR2. Not going to see that combo around much... RAMBUS RD-RAM was still clinging around when my S478 DDR1 board was bought.

VIA is not bad, but they do still sometimes run into chipset driver issues so I can't guarantee anything with that setup. The FSB's match up so you should be good to go, if it can run Prescott it can easily run a Northwood. Do not expect anything from the S3 Chrome9 IGP, it is good if you want to avoid a GPU altogether though. I believe it is the version that offers full Aero Glass support, if that also matters to ya.

The best place for a 478 motherboard is Geeks http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB or http://www.motherboardpro.com/ but it looks like mobopro only has 1 looks like Geek is the best on the net with 478 motherboards the BIOSTAR P4M900 M4 is a good board but only DDR2

Sohman wrote:The best place for a 478 motherboard is Geeks http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?cat=MBB or http://www.motherboardpro.com/ but it looks like mobopro only has 1 looks like Geek is the best on the net with 478 motherboards the BIOSTAR P4M900 M4 is a good board but only DDR2

Hey thanks for the links.
Ordered a server board for $30.00!
Had a matched set of PIII's and some ECC RAM lying around removed from a "dead cap" board several months ago.
Figured I'd never find a board to use them on.

biostar= garbage. might work for a while if you don't plan on overclocking at all.