Does chipset matter???

[Talk2Me]

I'm going to upgrade my motherboard and CPU. I've been looking at Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte motherboards. Some use Intel chipset (like 845) and others uses Sis chipset. Does it matter? Is one better than another? Is it important in choosing which mobo?

Thanks!

[BigBlue66]

Yes, the chipset is very important when considering a new motherboard and it depends in part on which brand of CPU you're planning on getting.

The latest and greatest chipset for AMD is possibly the Nforce2. MSI is coming out with a couple of loaded boards in the next couple of months.

You should decide on the CPU first, then do some research as to which is the best chipset for it.

[Talk2Me]

I'm going with a P4 mobo and chipset. Are there differences between all the 845's (845E, 845G, etc.) What about Sis? Is it a good one?

Thanks.

[saphalline]

Oh yeah, big differences between all the 845's. For instance, the original 845 could only handle 400MHz fsb P4's up to 2GHz or so, and only supported slow PC133 SDRAM. The latest 845PE handles 533MHz fsb P4's, including the new hyper-threaded 3.06GHz version, and supports 2GB of DDR333 RAM. The 845PE is probably the best P4 chipset for the money.

Now this will change as the dual-DDR chipsets come out, but they may not be available for another month and will be quite expensive at first. Ah, it all depends. Willing to wait 3 months? :rolleyes: Things change almost faster than they can be reviewed! :p

[KenGr]

It sounds like you have done a lot of research already but here is a comparison chart for Intel chipsets:

http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets/linecard.htm