ASUS A7N8X -DELUXE RAID&SOUND...

[blackeangle]

1, The A7N8X-Deluxe has RAID controller, right. Is it a 'hardware' or 'software'? Can I RAID 0 my current IBM deskstar 40G ATA100 7200rpm with SATA, or ATA133 harddisk ? If so, how's the stability ? If not, do I have to but an extra RAID card ? what brand ?

2. The Onboard Realtek ALC650 and APU Soundstorm are 'software' based soundsystem, and they will decrease the overall system perfroms, will they ?

3. AMD 2800+ is a FSB333 CPU, can I use it with a pair of PC3200(DDR400) memory without decreasing the memory's speed ?

4. I will install a pair of PC3200 512 memory (dual-channel configation), and I also want to plug my old PC2100 256MB memory on the third slot, so that total memory will be 1024+256=1280MB. My question is will the PC3200 memories keep their own speed and the Dual channel configation?

5. This motherboard is based on nForce2, so for the best (Stability & Performs) is to use a Nvidia's card instead of a ATI's, isn't it ?

I think those are probably the most newbie questions in this forum, but they're really bothering me for buying the new systems.so PLEASE HELP ME OUT DUDES.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by blackeangle on 12/08/03 05:41 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

1. Software I think. You want a matched pair to do RAID 0.

2. No, the nForce APU is hardware. APU stands for Audio Processing Unit, it's a sound chip built into the chipset's southbridge. The ALC650 is hardware too!

You see, most boards use the CPU to do digital audio processing, but the nForce APU does that part. And the ALC650 is a DAC, aka Digital/Analog Converter. So the Realtek part is normally associated with software sound, but in this case it uses the nForce APU instead of the CPU. DACs themselves are hardware.

3. You could, but you'd probably get better performance setting the RAM speed sychronous to the CPU bus. You can use PC3200, underclock it to the CPU bus speed, and try overclocking the CPU bus. That way the more highly rated RAM won't limit how far the CPU can be overclocked.

4. No.

5. No.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blackeangle]

Thanks Crashman. That helps me alot !
One more question:The A7N8X-Deluxe only supports SATA RAID,
can I use Master/Slave to configurate one ATA100 harddisk and one STAT harddisk ? Do I need to format my current ATA100 hardisk ?

 

[Crashman]

It supports up to 4 non-raided IDE devices (ATA). Any time you change motherboards, and especially when you're changing chipsets, you should format and do a clean install. With XP you'll have to either format or do a repair installation (basically a new install over the old one) just to get it to function.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[blackeangle]

Yeah.
But what is the best way to configurate a SATA drive and an IDE/ATA one ? Which one should set to Master for the best performs and compatibility(based on A7N8X-Dlexue) ?

 

[Crashman]

Considering drives aren't even as fast as the ATA100 standard, I'd say you wouldn't see a large difference. Unless you're using a Raptor, which is SATA only (and even that drive isn't faster han the ATA100 standard).

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[TheMASK]

I have 2 SATA drives (NOT in RAID) + 1 IDE drive on my A7N8X Dlx. From my experience, there is not much difference when i boot in either from my IBM IDE drive or Seagate SATA drive. But when i am copying a huge file, say a DVD of 4GB, copying from IDE to SATA takes 2 mins and copying from SATA to IDE takes about 6 mins.

And like Crashman said, using a PC2100 with a PC3200 stick will make the PC3200 stick run at PC2100 speed.

There is no compatibility issue with using a ATI card in that mobo.

<font color=red>
Barton 2500+ @ 10x222 = 2225MHz
A7N8X Dlx Rev 2.0
Kingston Hyper-X 2x256MB DDR500 @CL2.5-4-3-7
IBM IDE 80GB + Seagate SATA 2x120GB
MSI Ti4400 GPU/Memory : 300/650MHz
</font color=red>

 

[blackeangle]

Thank you Crashman and TheMask, you two's answers just cleared my doubts. Merry Xmas