Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors

Herbert Meister wrote:
> Can't find a board with two IDE connectors to connect 3-4 IDE devices.
> Should I just get some SATA2IDE converters or is that problematic
> (i.e. with DVD-burner)? Or should I rather take a seperate IDE pci
> card?
> I think I will buy a E6850 processor for multimedia development PC for
> the office. Is there any board which can be recommended for a stable
> system? I am also thinking about buying 4 GB which obviously can not
> be full accessed via Windows XP - or should I use rather 3 GB? Does
> RAM speed realy matter or can I use a more cheap RAM?
>
> Thanks in advance!

As mentioned by GMAN, a PCI IDE card would be the best course of action
for the IDE drives.

You may want to change from the E6850 to the E8400 CPU. The price is
lower and the 8400 is the newer, 45nm process generation of the Core2
DUO die (Wolfdale). It has 6 MB L2 cache, lower power requirement and
is faster by a few percent than the E6850 at 3 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB. You
win all around.
E6850:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028
E8400:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037

With the low price of DDR2 RAM, you might want to get 4 GB. If you
happen to upgrade to a 64 bit OS in the future, all 4 GB will able to be
used.

If you'll be sticking with a 32 bit OS, you really don't need more than
2 GB memory. XP 32 bit will address ~ 3GB out of 4 GB installed memory,
but the extra GB won't really help that much. I've tried all three
options with XP 32 bit and the best overall performance is with 2 GB RAM
(matched pair, dual channel).
 >> Stay informed about: Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors 

In article <fqglpu$t9q$1@murphy.mediascape.de>, Herbert Meister <invalid.DeleteThis@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Can't find a board with two IDE connectors to connect 3-4 IDE devices.
>Should I just get some SATA2IDE converters or is that problematic (i.e.
>with DVD-burner)? Or should I rather take a seperate IDE pci card?
>

I'd just scrap the idea of using an IDE burner and go buy one thats SATA. Many
of them out there can be had for $20-$40.

I tried the adapter route and it failed miserably.



>I think I will buy a E6850 processor for multimedia development PC for
>the office. Is there any board which can be recommended for a stable
>system? I am also thinking about buying 4 GB which obviously can not be
>full accessed via Windows XP - or should I use rather 3 GB? Does RAM
>speed realy matter or can I use a more cheap RAM?
>
>Thanks in advance!
 >> Stay informed about: Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors 

GMAN wrote:
> In article <fqglpu$t9q$1@murphy.mediascape.de>, Herbert Meister <invalid DeleteThis @invalid.invalid> wrote:
>> Can't find a board with two IDE connectors to connect 3-4 IDE devices.
>> Should I just get some SATA2IDE converters or is that problematic (i.e.
>> with DVD-burner)? Or should I rather take a seperate IDE pci card?
>>
>
> I'd just scrap the idea of using an IDE burner and go buy one thats SATA. Many
> of them out there can be had for $20-$40.
>
> I tried the adapter route and it failed miserably.

Ok, I think I get me a controller card for IDE.
 >> Stay informed about: Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors 

RobV wrote:

> You may want to change from the E6850 to the E8400 CPU. The price is
> lower and the 8400 is the newer, 45nm process generation of the Core2
> DUO die (Wolfdale). It has 6 MB L2 cache, lower power requirement and
> is faster by a few percent than the E6850 at 3 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB. You
> win all around.
> E6850:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028
> E8400:
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037

Yes the E8400 looks good. The other option was to get a Quad Q6600 which
is a bit faster on video applications. I think this is due to better
support of it's functions/cores. Any opinions on this one? The E8400 is
not available here at the moment.

> With the low price of DDR2 RAM, you might want to get 4 GB. If you
> happen to upgrade to a 64 bit OS in the future, all 4 GB will able to be
> used.
>
> If you'll be sticking with a 32 bit OS, you really don't need more than
> 2 GB memory. XP 32 bit will address ~ 3GB out of 4 GB installed memory,
> but the extra GB won't really help that much. I've tried all three
> options with XP 32 bit and the best overall performance is with 2 GB RAM
> (matched pair, dual channel).

Is 2 GB better even if I use lot of Photoshop and running multiple
programms parallel?
 >> Stay informed about: Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors 

In article <fqjqlj$221$1@murphy.mediascape.de>, Herbert Meister <invalid RemoveThis @invalid.invalid> wrote:
>RobV wrote:
>
>> You may want to change from the E6850 to the E8400 CPU. The price is
>> lower and the 8400 is the newer, 45nm process generation of the Core2
>> DUO die (Wolfdale). It has 6 MB L2 cache, lower power requirement and
>> is faster by a few percent than the E6850 at 3 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB. You
>> win all around.
>> E6850:
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028
>> E8400:
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
>
>Yes the E8400 looks good. The other option was to get a Quad Q6600 which
>is a bit faster on video applications. I think this is due to better
>support of it's functions/cores. Any opinions on this one? The E8400 is
>not available here at the moment.
>
>> With the low price of DDR2 RAM, you might want to get 4 GB. If you
>> happen to upgrade to a 64 bit OS in the future, all 4 GB will able to be
>> used.
>>
>> If you'll be sticking with a 32 bit OS, you really don't need more than
>> 2 GB memory. XP 32 bit will address ~ 3GB out of 4 GB installed memory,
>> but the extra GB won't really help that much. I've tried all three
>> options with XP 32 bit and the best overall performance is with 2 GB RAM
>> (matched pair, dual channel).
>
>Is 2 GB better even if I use lot of Photoshop and running multiple
>programms parallel?
Id still go for the 4GB. (2) 2 GB modules
 >> Stay informed about: Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors 

Herbert Meister wrote:
> RobV wrote:
>
>> You may want to change from the E6850 to the E8400 CPU. The price is
>> lower and the 8400 is the newer, 45nm process generation of the Core2
>> DUO die (Wolfdale). It has 6 MB L2 cache, lower power requirement
>> and is faster by a few percent than the E6850 at 3 GHz, 1333 MHz
>> FSB. You win all around.
>> E6850:
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028
>> E8400:
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037
>
> Yes the E8400 looks good. The other option was to get a Quad Q6600
> which is a bit faster on video applications. I think this is due to
> better support of it's functions/cores. Any opinions on this one? The
> E8400 is not available here at the moment.

The Q6600 is also great and sort of future proofs the system with four
cores. Yes, it's a good choice all around.

>> With the low price of DDR2 RAM, you might want to get 4 GB. If you
>> happen to upgrade to a 64 bit OS in the future, all 4 GB will able
>> to be used.
>>
>> If you'll be sticking with a 32 bit OS, you really don't need more
>> than 2 GB memory. XP 32 bit will address ~ 3GB out of 4 GB
>> installed memory, but the extra GB won't really help that much. I've
>> tried all three options with XP 32 bit and the best overall
>> performance is with 2 GB RAM (matched pair, dual channel).
>
> Is 2 GB better even if I use lot of Photoshop and running multiple
> programms parallel?

Yes, as the maximum usable memory will be ~3 GB (+_), even with 4 GB
installed. This assumes a 32 bit OS.

What I did was to get 2 GB initially and then another 2 GB since the
price was so low, and decided to do some experimenting. I use the
system (E6600 Core2 Duo) for music using Cakewalk Sonar 6 sound/video
production software. I noticed slightly less speed rendering tracks
with 4 GB installed. Probably due to the extra overhead involved in
mapping virtual addresses for MB devices and actual addresses for
memory.

Your experience may be different. Again, since DDR2 is so cheap right
now, get 4 GB, probably best to get 2 2 GB matched pairs. You can
experiment as well to see if the extra 2 GB, only 1 GB of which will be
available, will help, especially with a quad core CPU.

In any case, if you decide to use a 64 bit OS in the future, you'll have
4 GB memory, all of which will be available for use by the 64 bit OS.
Along with a quad core CPU, you should get very good results.
 >> Stay informed about: Mainboard decision with 2 IDE/PATA connectors