[sandstorm2k4]

Hey guys,

I'm in the market for a new motherboard. I'm looking at the Gigabyte 8VM533M-RZ Via Socket 478 Micro ATX Motherboard

I have a few questions:

1) Will there be a problem installing the micro atx mobo in an atx case?

2) Will it support the Intel P4Prescott 2.4A? I checked their site and they say it supports the Prescott 2.4G? Is it the same thing?

3) I have a stick of 512MB DDR Ram (PC3200) THe board will support PC 2100 . Will the PC3200 still work but be used as 2100?

Thanks a bunch

 

[Barry_R]

I think the 2.4G is a Celeron D chip with a Prescott core. The difference between a 2.4A Prescott and a Celeron D (2.4G) is the L2 cache (1M vs 256K).

I would contact the manufacturer of that board before marrying a different CPU up to it.

 

[linderman]

Welcome to TSF:

Your board also supports PC 2700 / if you are concerned about using an existing stick of memory you have / then I would say try it ??? Sometimes the memory stick will just throttle down to the slower speed and setting

if you already have the existing stick of PC 3200 / I would sell that one off on ebay and buy a matching pair of PC 2700 ram sticks (use one of the memory compatability selectors) on the websites of vendors like crucial, corsair or OCZ
to find out which memory stick model numbers have been tested for your board / because if you run a matched pair of memory sticks you will then be in dual channel mode which is alot better system performance compared to running one single stick of PC 32oo which will put you in single channel mode = much slower perfromance

check out ebay you may be able to pick up a used set of PC 2700 real cheap ???? from another person who is upgrading ??

cheers

joe

 

[sandstorm2k4]

I wrote an email to Gigabyte and they haven't answered yet.. Any thoughts on the Prescott compatibility with this board?

 

[UncleMacro]

1) A micro-ATX motherboard will fit in an ATX case. You just have to move the little metal stand-offs on the case base plate to line up with the holes in the motherboard.

2) It looks like a Prescott 2.4A is this CPU. It's just a 2.4GHz Prescott with a 533 FSB. Gigabyte's CPU compatibility page claims support for a 2.4GHz Prescott with a 533 FSB. The "G"s which they're using on that page are for Gigahertz - not a CPU code number.

3) DDR RAM is required to run at lower clock rates so you can use DDR400 in a DDR266 motherboard. At least those are the rules. People have on rare occasion had problems with such things but it will almost certainly work just fine. Most RAM sticks will automatically run at tighter memory timings when run at a slower clock rate so you don't lose as much speed as you might expect. Some RAM sticks require manual programming in the BIOS to go faster when using a slower clock. You can check the SPD (serial presence detect - the ROM on the RAM stick which tells the motherboard how fast it can go) timing tables with CPU-Z. The SPD Timing Tables show what timings the RAM stick will use at various clock rates.

 

[sandstorm2k4]

Thanks for the thorough reply Uncle Macro...