Motherboard technology questions

Browser_ICE

<div class="IPBDescription">explanation of terms</div>I have been so out of it for a few years about Motherboard technology that looking at different models (www.tigerdirect.ca), I'm lost.

Can someone explain what these terms mean :

-SLI

-S/PDIF

-Firewire

-Socket 775 : ATX size right ? Baught a new full ATX tower last Summer to prepare for upgrading (+ new 500W PCI-E/SATA PowerSupply)

-MB with graphic chipset (ex: Nvidia) : do they use MB memory (Simms we put in) and what's the difference with having a seperate video card ?

-Satisfaction trend : go Intel MB, ASUS MB, ...

I am not looking at a full blown power machine. Just the basic I can grow from. I am looking to do a full upgrade in the next few months, pieces by pieces (hopefully). Its a very slow money gathering process. Still have an AGP MB.

p.s. : I do gaming, graphic applications (3dmax, SecondLife, OpenSim, Gimp), Win-XP, Ubuntu (Ati sucks on it)

Zaggy

-SLI
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface%5dhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link..._Link_Interface</a>
Linking up 2 or more Nvidia videocards for additional performance
pros: put two bang for buck videocards together for performance that rivals or excels more expensive high-end videocards
cons: twice the performance than one but also twice the power draw, make sure you have a PSU that provides enough juice!
Unless you're going for very high resolutions and have a high budget I'd recommend going for a single videocard.

-S/PDIF
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF%5dhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF]http:/...org/wiki/S/PDIF</a>
Fiber audio cable, no personal experience with this one but I'd say a digital connection might provide a better connection in terms of interference and such?

-Firewire
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface%5dhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_interface" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_1394_int..._1394_interface</a>
High speed plug and play connector like USB but not as commonly present on motherboards or PC cases.
Don't have any personal experience with those.

-Socket 775 : ATX size right ? Baught a new full ATX tower last Summer to prepare for upgrading (+ new 500W PCI-E/SATA PowerSupply)
Socket only means the kind of CPU you can put in there.

-MB with graphic chipset (ex: Nvidia) : do they use MB memory (Simms we put in) and what's the difference with having a seperate video card ?
Onboard videocards are slower than most PCI-e or AGP videocards and reserve memory (steal) from your RAM.
If you're going to play games I'd strongly recommend to get a PCI-e videocard.

-Satisfaction trend : go Intel MB, ASUS MB, ...
I've had or have AMD, Intel, Asus, Gigabyte and EVGA components, all decent brands.
Nothing is perfect though, just make sure you search around for known problems to prevent unpleasant surprises.

Rob

Firewire is pretty big in the Mac universe. It's <i>roughly</i> comparable to USB, I suppose.

If by chipset you don't mean an onboard video, then you're probably talking about the northbridge controller. ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_(computing)" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northbridge_(computing)</a> ) Northbridge is kind of a legacy term, but what the chipset does is broker and cache data as it travels between the CPU components that need the most bandwidth (CPU, Vid cards, and RAM) A lot of boards these days have chipsets made by nVidia, which can be confusing. They call these "nForce" as opposed to "gForce."

Xyth

Saying that SLI doubles your video-card performance is a massive over-statement. The improvements are more on-par with the differences between single vs dual core processors of the same speed. Buying the newer card will almost always be a better deal then SLI aswell.

Browser_ICE

On my current AGP MB, I have 2 HD where I put all non Windows parts (swap, temp, internet, games, ...) on the 2nd HD to gain performance speed. Since these are IDE HD, is it still worth it going with 2 SATA HD to do the same or is the performance high enough on one single SATA HD to make this insignificant ?

I think I saw somewhere that there are IDE to SATA converter. Is it worth it if I get 2 of them to still use my 2 IDE HD until I can get SATA ? I mean so at least I can work with the new rig until I do get SATAs.

Are most MB still limited to 4MB of SIMS (I heard some can go as high as 8Gb) ?

What's the highers MB amount per SIMS nowadays ? 2GB, 4b ?

Should I keep my 500W PS or go higher if I want a standard rig but possibly with 2hd ?

Again, my money gathering process is very sloooowwwwwww. Not even sure if I can get a loan (did a bankruptcy 6 years ago but came out clean).

Kouji_San

<i><b>On my current AGP MB, I have 2 HD where I put all non Windows parts (swap, temp, internet, games, ...) on the 2nd HD to gain performance speed. Since these are IDE HD, is it still worth it going with 2 SATA HD to do the same or is the performance high enough on one single SATA HD to make this insignificant ?</b></i>
- I recently needed more HDD space, so I got me a Samsung Spinpoint 1TB. It's just as fast as my 10.000RPM western digital Raptor drives (older models). But if you want more performance ya can try the new Velociraptors (300gb max?).

Or get a few 1TB drives and start running in RAID for ultimate performance+backupsafety (good RAID controller needed though)

<i><b>I think I saw somewhere that there are IDE to SATA converter. Is it worth it if I get 2 of them to still use my 2 IDE HD until I can get SATA ? I mean so at least I can work with the new rig until I do get SATAs. </b></i>
-Those IDE drives will run at their normal max speed I think... But most motherboards still have IDE connectors. Some of them only have one though. But yeah if you find a motherboard with 2 IDE connectors (most DVD+CD drives need IDE love too), just use those instead of the SATA converting shizzle (I don't trust a converter to run at optimal speeds anyway...)


<i><b>Are most MB still limited to 4MB of SIMS (I heard some can go as high as 8Gb) ? </b></i>
- The 4GB/3.xxxGB limit is usually related to not running a 64 bit operating system. but if you want to be sure, just check the motherboard specifications. I still think it is wastefull to go over 2GB (running XP pro).

-- Now I also have one question about dual channel. Is it still true that 2x1GB(TWINSET) dual channel is faster then 1x1GB+1x2GB (3gb total). Cause if this is no longer the case, ya might want to look into the 1GB+2GB option when running a 32bits OS.



<i><b>What's the highers MB amount per SIMS nowadays ? 2GB, 4b ?</b></i>
- 2GB is good enough unless you're going into large DPI photoshop stuff or 3d design or heavy duty HD video editing (Vista needs a minimum of 2Gb though)



<i><b>Should I keep my 500W PS or go higher if I want a standard rig but possibly with 2hd ?</b></i>
- From what I can tell (no research oh shame on me <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />) SLI is the main pwrdrain, no SLI and 400watt is good enough (well I still run that on my HD4850+E6420 dualcore+2GB ram and 3 hdd's. without a hitch...

iFire

Browser_ICE if you are deciding to build a new computer choose if you want to build an Intel Core i7 system or a Core 2 System. The i7 systems are more expensive, but it will last. The Core 2 systems are cheaper but they are older technology.

Memory-wise i7 systems usually have 6 slots of dimms. A general configuration would have 3 dimms of 2gbs of ram. (Yes 4gb dimm are still expensive) This means 6gbs of ram. But you can also fill it up and have 12 gbs or even 24 gbs with 4 gig dimms.

Memory-wise Core 2 systems have 4 slots of dimms. A general configuration would have 2 dimms of 2 gbs of ram. This means 4gbs of ram. But you can also fill it up and have 8gbs or even 16 gb with 4 gig dimms.

I wouldn't deal with ide-sata converters. I suggest getting new hard drives. 1 terabyte drives is about 100 dollars or less. (Perpendular technology allowed hard drive manufacturers to have larger capacities) You can raid them for greater performance, or you have the option to get SSD (solid state drives). The ones to get for SSDs is Ocz Vertex or the Intel SSD. (they're quite expensive though) But you can load Photoshop CS4 in 5 seconds!

Zaggy

<!--quoteo(post=1705027:date=Apr 16 2009, 06:04 AM:name=Xyth)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Xyth @ Apr 16 2009, 06:04 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1705027"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Saying that SLI doubles your video-card performance is a massive over-statement. The improvements are more on-par with the differences between single vs dual core processors of the same speed. Buying the newer card will almost always be a better deal then SLI aswell.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Having no personal experience with SLI myself I looked around a bit to make sure I wasn't blabbering nonsense.
I came up with the following info:

<a href="http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforce_9600_gt_sli_performance/page3.asp" target="_blank">http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/geforc...mance/page3.asp</a>

<a href="http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=716&p=2" target="_blank">http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=716&p=2</a>

<a href="http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-245454_15_0.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/page-245454_15_0.html</a>

<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q1-2008/3DMark06-v1.0.2-HDR-SM3.0-Score,538.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...-Score,538.html</a> (1024x768)
Nvidia 8800 GT OC SLI: 8049
Nvidia 8800 GT OC: 6023
sli advantage: +33,63%

<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q1-2008/3DMark06-v1.0.2-HDR-SM3.0-Score,540.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...-Score,540.html</a> (1280x1024)
Nvidia 8800 GT OC SLI: 6036
Nvidia 8800 GT OC: 3468
sli advantage: +74,04%

<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q1-2008/3DMark06-v1.0.2-HDR-SM3.0-Score,541.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...-Score,541.html</a> (1600x1200)
Nvidia 8800 GT OC SLI: 4933
Nvidia 8800 GT OC: 2765
sli advantage: +78,40%

In short: SLI will only provide a considerable boost in performance if:

* the game/application in question takes advantages of SLI
* the game/application actually focuses on GPU usage instead of CPU
* you play at resolutions high enough to notice a difference, 1280x1024 and higher

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Should I keep my 500W PS or go higher if I want a standard rig but possibly with 2hd ?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Depends on current components and age of your PSU, 500W is quite a lot, I never came further than ~300W with overclocked pc and ~220W with default speeds on same pc.
Going to search how fast PSUs wear down on average.
-edit-
From what I could gather this is hard to predict, depends on capacitors used in the PSU, general usage and age.
Couldn't find any surveys that looks into those things.
Wouldn't worry too much about it, if your old PSU can't handle it you'll just be getting another one rather quick.

Browser_ICE

Thx for the infos guys.

I bought my Power supply in August :
<a href="http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3299717&Sku=C283-1856" target="_blank">http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...p;Sku=C283-1856</a>

At the same time, baught a tower (had a mid-tower before, wanted bigger space and more fans (got 2) ):
<a href="http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1215768&Sku=ULT31824" target="_blank">http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Se...mp;Sku=ULT31824</a>

The way I see it, I have about 10% chances of getting a $1000-1500 loan. I figure buying everything from scratch would probably cost around $1200

Also, if I can't get a loan, then my only other option is to get a better AGP card (have an ATI 9600xt). Thinking of getting a new one around $150 like an ATI HD3850 512Mb:
<a href="http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3855381" target="_blank">http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...p?EdpNo=3855381</a>

By the way, that AGP card has a 6pin power connector. Do I need to connect power to it <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" /> The only 6pin connector I have on my PS is a PCI-E one. So what gives ?

I know I already asked the same kind of questions 1-2 years ago but back then I thought by now I would have had a better salary. I have 53% of my 10 years job salary I lost 2 years ago. The need to get a better performance PC is very strong. It is starting to affect my career planning projects I started (virtual reality).

Jasp

AGP is quite outdated now, if you end up upgrading piece by piece you are going to have to buy another GFX card as all the motherboards are now PCI-E.

As to answer your question yes the AGP card has to have a separate power input in this case the 6pin PCI-E cable, the reason being they have to draw more power then the motherboard allows, i believe a 6pin is 75w and 8pin is 150w. The power supply you have should be able to handle that fine.