SLI or Scalable Link Interface Motherboard Questions
It's time for me to assemble a new computer from Win98SE to Vista O/S.
The computer basically use for Web's business and not gamer. Either an Asus or
Gigabyte mobo with AMD AM2+ 64000 MHZ.
Should I buy a SLI mobo and what's the different between a SLI and non-SLI mobo?
Prefer Video and Audio onboard, I presume I don't need to buy an additional
video or audio card and any advantage or disadvantage?
Should use Kingston's, Corsair or other RAM?
I have a new Maxtor 160GB ATA/100 internal HD which I intend to use and include
an IDE CD/DVD burner. Therefore I need a mobo with at least two PATA
connections.
Re: SLI or Scalable Link Interface Motherboard Questions
Jim B wrote:
> It's time for me to assemble a new computer from Win98SE to Vista O/S.
> The computer basically use for Web's business and not gamer. Either an Asus or
> Gigabyte mobo with AMD AM2+ 64000 MHZ.
>
> Should I buy a SLI mobo and what's the different between a SLI and non-SLI mobo?
>
> Prefer Video and Audio onboard, I presume I don't need to buy an additional
> video or audio card and any advantage or disadvantage?
>
> Should use Kingston's, Corsair or other RAM?
>
> I have a new Maxtor 160GB ATA/100 internal HD which I intend to use and include
> an IDE CD/DVD burner. Therefore I need a mobo with at least two PATA
> connections.
>
> Any suggest and advice? Thanks
>
Some motherboards are designed for "gamer" video card configurations.
Nvidia video cards offer an SLI option. That allows two Nvidia video cards
to work in tandem, to drive a single display. Two large PCI Express slots
(x16 sized slot) makes room for the two video cards.
Nvidia currently restricts their SLI video card driver, to work with Nvidia
chipset motherboards.
ATI video cards offer a Crossfire option. That allows two ATI video cards
to work in tandem. In terms of driver support, at least some Intel chipset
motherboards are supported. So you may see some LGA775 socket motherboards
for Intel processors, with two video card slots.
You, on the other hand, are a business user. As a business user, you could
survive with a motherboard that has integrated graphics. Or, you could buy
a motherboard with a single video card (x16 PCI Express) slot, and buy video
cards starting at about $50 or so. The Vista "Aero" interface, makes use
of the graphics card memory, for "compositing" the windows seen on the desktop.
Even integrated graphics can support that. But my personal preference would be
some kind of separate video card (better output connector options, sometimes
video playback acceleration options, even some expensive multimedia software
can make use of GPU programming etc).
So, what other uses can be made of a motherboard with two video card slots ?
If you needed extreme disk bandwidth for some reason, you could plug an
Areca RAID card with x8 slot width, into a x16 slot. That might be
appropriate if you were building a home file server for example.
Other than that, the second x16 sized PCI Express slot may go to waste.
If you need to review motherboards, go to the Newegg site, as each of the
boards has some feedback from customers. That is how I attempt to pick
through the mess.
Sometimes, the fact a board has two video card slots is coincidental.
Maybe a board has a good reputation for being stable, or overclockable.
Some of the cheap or less popular motherboards, may not have received
BIOS updates as regularly as the others.
And in the case of motherboards intended for AMD processors, you might
notice that there aren't really a lot of cheaper boards that are
completely free of complaints from customers. So sometimes, picking
a more expensive board, is purely based on it having a clean record.
Now, you mentioned AM2+, and here is a board that claims to support it.
Basically, this gives two clear PCI slots, for the "small" things you
want to add. Most likely, the excess PCI Express slots won't get used,
but that'll leave more room for your video card to breathe. 790FX
boards have not been on the street for very long, so this makes
you an "early adopter".
The board has Firewire, USB, sound, and a LAN connection, so you
really shouldn't need to add PCI cards immediately. Unless you're
stuck with dialup, and need to add a Winmodem or something.
Re: SLI or Scalable Link Interface Motherboard Questions
On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:49:48 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.com> wrote:
Paul, I am still here and thank you for sorting out the "mess" for me. I am
lurking at Newegg website since the last three weeks comparing Asus/Gigabyte
mobos.
I have not decided which mobo, but leaning to GA-M61P-S3 AM2 Nvidia GeForce 610
and AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz Socket AM2 Dual-Core Processor. If I
go with your suggestion, GIGABYTE GA-MA790FX-DS5 AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD I
will have to go to AMD Phenom 9500 Agena Quad-Core Processor what are the
benefit?
Thanks you again.
>Some motherboards are designed for "gamer" video card configurations.
>
>Nvidia video cards offer an SLI option. That allows two Nvidia video cards
>to work in tandem, to drive a single display. Two large PCI Express slots
>(x16 sized slot) makes room for the two video cards.
>
>Nvidia currently restricts their SLI video card driver, to work with Nvidia
>chipset motherboards.
>
>ATI video cards offer a Crossfire option. That allows two ATI video cards
>to work in tandem. In terms of driver support, at least some Intel chipset
>motherboards are supported. So you may see some LGA775 socket motherboards
>for Intel processors, with two video card slots.
>
>You, on the other hand, are a business user. As a business user, you could
>survive with a motherboard that has integrated graphics. Or, you could buy
>a motherboard with a single video card (x16 PCI Express) slot, and buy video
>cards starting at about $50 or so. The Vista "Aero" interface, makes use
>of the graphics card memory, for "compositing" the windows seen on the desktop.
>Even integrated graphics can support that. But my personal preference would be
>some kind of separate video card (better output connector options, sometimes
>video playback acceleration options, even some expensive multimedia software
>can make use of GPU programming etc).
>
>So, what other uses can be made of a motherboard with two video card slots ?
>
>If you needed extreme disk bandwidth for some reason, you could plug an
>Areca RAID card with x8 slot width, into a x16 slot. That might be
>appropriate if you were building a home file server for example.
>
>Other than that, the second x16 sized PCI Express slot may go to waste.
>
>If you need to review motherboards, go to the Newegg site, as each of the
>boards has some feedback from customers. That is how I attempt to pick
>through the mess.
>
>Sometimes, the fact a board has two video card slots is coincidental.
>Maybe a board has a good reputation for being stable, or overclockable.
>Some of the cheap or less popular motherboards, may not have received
>BIOS updates as regularly as the others.
>
>And in the case of motherboards intended for AMD processors, you might
>notice that there aren't really a lot of cheaper boards that are
>completely free of complaints from customers. So sometimes, picking
>a more expensive board, is purely based on it having a clean record.
>
>Now, you mentioned AM2+, and here is a board that claims to support it.
>Basically, this gives two clear PCI slots, for the "small" things you
>want to add. Most likely, the excess PCI Express slots won't get used,
>but that'll leave more room for your video card to breathe. 790FX
>boards have not been on the street for very long, so this makes
>you an "early adopter".
>
>GIGABYTE GA-MA790FX-DS5 AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128074
>
>The board has Firewire, USB, sound, and a LAN connection, so you
>really shouldn't need to add PCI cards immediately. Unless you're
>stuck with dialup, and need to add a Winmodem or something.
>
> Paul
Re: SLI or Scalable Link Interface Motherboard Questions
Jim B wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:49:48 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.com> wrote:
>
> Paul, I am still here and thank you for sorting out the "mess" for me. I am
> lurking at Newegg website since the last three weeks comparing Asus/Gigabyte
> mobos.
>
> I have not decided which mobo, but leaning to GA-M61P-S3 AM2 Nvidia GeForce 610
> and AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Windsor 3.0GHz Socket AM2 Dual-Core Processor. If I
> go with your suggestion, GIGABYTE GA-MA790FX-DS5 AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD I
> will have to go to AMD Phenom 9500 Agena Quad-Core Processor what are the
> benefit?
>
> Thanks you again.
For any motherboard purchase, you want a couple things. Feedback that there
isn't anything wrong with the board. And checking the CPUSupport page, to see
what processors the board supports.
In this case, a couple Phenom processors are listed, and so is the 6000+.
The board is AM2/AM2+, so it supports both. What I cannot tell you right off
hand, is whether it supports the processor properly, or runs the Phenom in
an AM2 mode. You get to run some clock on the processor slightly higher, if
true AM2+ support is present on the board.
In the "future models" section of this article, you can see that a new socket
will be introduced at some point. When the processors switch to using DDR3,
then a DDR2 motherboard is not going to be able to run them. But until
that day comes, your motherboard will still have some upgrade options.
Right now, DDR2 is the right place to be, because it is so cheap. DDR3
is needed, so the memory chip manufacturers won't go bankrupt :-)
>
>> Some motherboards are designed for "gamer" video card configurations.
>>
>> Nvidia video cards offer an SLI option. That allows two Nvidia video cards
>> to work in tandem, to drive a single display. Two large PCI Express slots
>> (x16 sized slot) makes room for the two video cards.
>>
>> Nvidia currently restricts their SLI video card driver, to work with Nvidia
>> chipset motherboards.
>>
>> ATI video cards offer a Crossfire option. That allows two ATI video cards
>> to work in tandem. In terms of driver support, at least some Intel chipset
>> motherboards are supported. So you may see some LGA775 socket motherboards
>> for Intel processors, with two video card slots.
>>
>> You, on the other hand, are a business user. As a business user, you could
>> survive with a motherboard that has integrated graphics. Or, you could buy
>> a motherboard with a single video card (x16 PCI Express) slot, and buy video
>> cards starting at about $50 or so. The Vista "Aero" interface, makes use
>> of the graphics card memory, for "compositing" the windows seen on the desktop.
>> Even integrated graphics can support that. But my personal preference would be
>> some kind of separate video card (better output connector options, sometimes
>> video playback acceleration options, even some expensive multimedia software
>> can make use of GPU programming etc).
>>
>> So, what other uses can be made of a motherboard with two video card slots ?
>>
>> If you needed extreme disk bandwidth for some reason, you could plug an
>> Areca RAID card with x8 slot width, into a x16 slot. That might be
>> appropriate if you were building a home file server for example.
>>
>> Other than that, the second x16 sized PCI Express slot may go to waste.
>>
>> If you need to review motherboards, go to the Newegg site, as each of the
>> boards has some feedback from customers. That is how I attempt to pick
>> through the mess.
>>
>> Sometimes, the fact a board has two video card slots is coincidental.
>> Maybe a board has a good reputation for being stable, or overclockable.
>> Some of the cheap or less popular motherboards, may not have received
>> BIOS updates as regularly as the others.
>>
>> And in the case of motherboards intended for AMD processors, you might
>> notice that there aren't really a lot of cheaper boards that are
>> completely free of complaints from customers. So sometimes, picking
>> a more expensive board, is purely based on it having a clean record.
>>
>> Now, you mentioned AM2+, and here is a board that claims to support it.
>> Basically, this gives two clear PCI slots, for the "small" things you
>> want to add. Most likely, the excess PCI Express slots won't get used,
>> but that'll leave more room for your video card to breathe. 790FX
>> boards have not been on the street for very long, so this makes
>> you an "early adopter".
>>
>> GIGABYTE GA-MA790FX-DS5 AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128074
>>
>> The board has Firewire, USB, sound, and a LAN connection, so you
>> really shouldn't need to add PCI cards immediately. Unless you're
>> stuck with dialup, and need to add a Winmodem or something.
>>
>> Paul
>
Re: SLI or Scalable Link Interface Motherboard Questions
On Wed, 19 Dec 2007 14:21:12 -0500, Paul <nospam@needed.com> wrote:
>For any motherboard purchase, you want a couple things. Feedback that there
>isn't anything wrong with the board. And checking the CPUSupport page, to see
>what processors the board supports.
>In this case, a couple Phenom processors are listed, and so is the 6000+.
>The board is AM2/AM2+, so it supports both. What I cannot tell you right off
>hand, is whether it supports the processor properly, or runs the Phenom in
>an AM2 mode. You get to run some clock on the processor slightly higher, if
>true AM2+ support is present on the board
The feedback on Phenom does not sound great and also have mix feeling on the
feedback on mobo from Newegg's website. I kept asking myself do I really need a
Quad-Core processor now and paying 4 times more (mobo+processor) for something
that might be obsolete shortly. Thanks for the links below and do a bit more
search before I settle on a system. In a few days I will post the system and get
your opinion. Thanks you are great help :-)
>http://www.giga-byte.com/Support/Mot...ProductID=2694
>
>There is an article here, to fill in the details on AM2+ .
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM2%2B
>
>In the "future models" section of this article, you can see that a new socket
>will be introduced at some point. When the processors switch to using DDR3,
>then a DDR2 motherboard is not going to be able to run them. But until
>that day comes, your motherboard will still have some upgrade options.
>Right now, DDR2 is the right place to be, because it is so cheap. DDR3
>is needed, so the memory chip manufacturers won't go bankrupt :-)
>
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenom_%28processor%29
>
> Paul
>
>>
>>> Some motherboards are designed for "gamer" video card configurations.
>>>
>>> Nvidia video cards offer an SLI option. That allows two Nvidia video cards
>>> to work in tandem, to drive a single display. Two large PCI Express slots
>>> (x16 sized slot) makes room for the two video cards.
>>>
>>> Nvidia currently restricts their SLI video card driver, to work with Nvidia
>>> chipset motherboards.
>>>
>>> ATI video cards offer a Crossfire option. That allows two ATI video cards
>>> to work in tandem. In terms of driver support, at least some Intel chipset
>>> motherboards are supported. So you may see some LGA775 socket motherboards
>>> for Intel processors, with two video card slots.
>>>
>>> You, on the other hand, are a business user. As a business user, you could
>>> survive with a motherboard that has integrated graphics. Or, you could buy
>>> a motherboard with a single video card (x16 PCI Express) slot, and buy video
>>> cards starting at about $50 or so. The Vista "Aero" interface, makes use
>>> of the graphics card memory, for "compositing" the windows seen on the desktop.
>>> Even integrated graphics can support that. But my personal preference would be
>>> some kind of separate video card (better output connector options, sometimes
>>> video playback acceleration options, even some expensive multimedia software
>>> can make use of GPU programming etc).
>>>
>>> So, what other uses can be made of a motherboard with two video card slots ?
>>>
>>> If you needed extreme disk bandwidth for some reason, you could plug an
>>> Areca RAID card with x8 slot width, into a x16 slot. That might be
>>> appropriate if you were building a home file server for example.
>>>
>>> Other than that, the second x16 sized PCI Express slot may go to waste.
>>>
>>> If you need to review motherboards, go to the Newegg site, as each of the
>>> boards has some feedback from customers. That is how I attempt to pick
>>> through the mess.
>>>
>>> Sometimes, the fact a board has two video card slots is coincidental.
>>> Maybe a board has a good reputation for being stable, or overclockable.
>>> Some of the cheap or less popular motherboards, may not have received
>>> BIOS updates as regularly as the others.
>>>
>>> And in the case of motherboards intended for AMD processors, you might
>>> notice that there aren't really a lot of cheaper boards that are
>>> completely free of complaints from customers. So sometimes, picking
>>> a more expensive board, is purely based on it having a clean record.
>>>
>>> Now, you mentioned AM2+, and here is a board that claims to support it.
>>> Basically, this gives two clear PCI slots, for the "small" things you
>>> want to add. Most likely, the excess PCI Express slots won't get used,
>>> but that'll leave more room for your video card to breathe. 790FX
>>> boards have not been on the street for very long, so this makes
>>> you an "early adopter".
>>>
>>> GIGABYTE GA-MA790FX-DS5 AM2+/AM2 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
>>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128074
>>>
>>> The board has Firewire, USB, sound, and a LAN connection, so you
>>> really shouldn't need to add PCI cards immediately. Unless you're
>>> stuck with dialup, and need to add a Winmodem or something.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>
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