Cheapest 64 Bit PCI(X) P3 board ???

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

Hi!
I´m not even sure if there is such a board - but I´d like to eliminate some
bottlenecks on my 3rd machine ("download & MP3/DIVX-server"). Actually, this
system runs a PIII 750 at 1000 MHz on an Asus TUSL2-C. Extremely stable for
more than a year now. The only problem is the limited PCI bus bandwidth.
With a gigabit LAN-card and a Promise UDMA RAID controller it gives hell to
the 32 bit / 33 MHz PCI bus with its maximum 133 MB/s.
So I am looking for a cheap solution that offers more bandwidth there.
Unfortunately all socket 370 boards with 64 bit PCI bus I found are based on
ServerWorks chipsets and need fu... expensive registered DIMMs.
The A7M266-D can run up to 2 unregistered DIMMs but is an Athlon board.
Pretty difficult decision...
Anyone out there with a good idea in so far ???????
Thanx a billion in advance !

Cya -

Joachim

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

John McClane schrieb:
>
> Hi!
> I´m not even sure if there is such a board - but I´d like to eliminate some
> bottlenecks on my 3rd machine ("download & MP3/DIVX-server").

IIRC 64 bit PCI was pretty much limited to ServerWorks chipsets (-->
registered SDRAM!) and the i840 (RDRAM). Look at Tyan boards - but don't
expect too much overclocking features for any server board. I have no
clue how the two 32-bit PCI buses in the Tyan Thunderbolt (kind of a
dream board of mine, though not passive cooling friendly and waaay too
big for my case) are connected, though I guess one is attached to the
other, given the i440BX/GX only supports one PCI bus in addition to AGP.

> With a gigabit LAN-card and a Promise UDMA RAID controller it gives hell to
> the 32 bit / 33 MHz PCI bus with its maximum 133 MB/s.
> So I am looking for a cheap solution that offers more bandwidth there.
> Unfortunately all socket 370 boards with 64 bit PCI bus I found are based on
> ServerWorks chipsets and need fu... expensive registered DIMMs.
> The A7M266-D can run up to 2 unregistered DIMMs but is an Athlon board.
> Pretty difficult decision...
> Anyone out there with a good idea in so far ???????

Not really. You might want to choose the A7M266-D or another comparable
board and do some bridge modding for a lower default VCore and some
underclocking to keep power dissipation within reasonable limits.

Stephan (TDP 8.7 W )
--
Meine Andere Seite: http://stephan.win31.de/
PC#6: i440BX, 1xP3-500E, 512 MiB, 18+80 GB, R9k AGP 64 MiB, 110W
This is a SCSI-inside, Legacy-plus, TCPA-free computer
Mail to From: not read, see homepg. | Real gelesene Mailadr. s. Homep.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus (More info?)

"John McClane" <jkle@misco.de> wrote in message
news:c69lkr$tg4$00$1@news.t-online.com...
> Hi!
> I´m not even sure if there is such a board - but I´d like to eliminate
some
> bottlenecks on my 3rd machine ("download & MP3/DIVX-server"). Actually,
this
> system runs a PIII 750 at 1000 MHz on an Asus TUSL2-C. Extremely stable
for
> more than a year now. The only problem is the limited PCI bus bandwidth.
> With a gigabit LAN-card and a Promise UDMA RAID controller it gives hell
to
> the 32 bit / 33 MHz PCI bus with its maximum 133 MB/s.
> So I am looking for a cheap solution that offers more bandwidth there.
> Unfortunately all socket 370 boards with 64 bit PCI bus I found are based
on
> ServerWorks chipsets and need fu... expensive registered DIMMs.
> The A7M266-D can run up to 2 unregistered DIMMs but is an Athlon board.
> Pretty difficult decision...
> Anyone out there with a good idea in so far ???????
> Thanx a billion in advance !
>
> Cya -
>
> Joachim

Well, you have to pay to play (sorry, I couldn't resist saying that ).

Don't sneeze at the ServerWorks stuff. I happen to have a great dual P3
board (Gateway/Quanta) that has a built-in Intel Gigabit LAN port (which
runs at 64/66), 4 64/66 slots, and 2 32/33 slots. The board has dual Adaptec
U160 SCSI ports (which also run at 64/66). NO AGP, USB2.0, Firewire or sound
(and NO overclocking), however (it does have USB 1.1 ports). I've run a Gig
of Reg. ECC PC133 RAM on this board (it takes up to 4 Gigs). Everything runs
fine. To be honest, memory bandwidth is not on par with the DDR solutions.
But if you are not concerned with that, then this solution might work.
BTW, I also used this board for a download/MP3 server (and the SCSI drives
and Gigabit NIC just moves those files rather nicely!).

If you are OK with the speed of your processor and the PC133 memory, then a
board like this may be right for you. You can keep your old processor, and
will simply have to add RAM. And you can ditch your Gigabit NIC, b/c the
board has one built-in that actually runs at 64/66. If you decide to get one
of those 3Ware 64 bit IDE RAID controllers (not cheap, except maybe on
eBay), you would have more than adequate bandwidth (and even if you didn't
get such a card, there is very little running on the 32-bit bus). As for the
Reg. ECC memory, you can get decent deals on that too on eBay (i.e. $160 for
2 x 512 meg. sticks).

For max. bandwidth (other than what others and I have mentioned), the
multiple bus PCI-X (& PCI-64 to a lesser degree) are really where its at
right now. And that means Opteron and Xeon (and ServerWorks if you want to
stay with Socket 370). The AMD MPX solutions (i.e. the Asus A7M266-D and the
like) are relatively inexpensive, but just don't give robust performance. I
had two A7M266-Ds (Rev. 1.03 and Rev. 1.04). The memory performance was
marginally better than my ServerWorks P3 board, and far below my dual Xeon
system. The ServerWorks board just spanked the Asus with onboard features
(i.e. the 64/66 SCSI and NIC, and the 4 64/66 slots). And the MPX chipset on
the Asus and similar boards is known to have bandwidth issues and PCI
conflicts with certain devices plugged into the 64-bit slots (visit the 2CPU
forums for details on this).

A little food for thought. I say get a P3 board similar to mine (you can get
mine if you want ) and spring for the Reg. ECC PC133 RAM.Or skip the
AMD MPX stuff and get a cheap Xeon or 875P solution (as someone else
mentioned). After that, Opteron.

Good luck,

Des