sata, nvidia etc.

[Dave]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

just a few last questions on my asus k8 etc. thread that I've pulled out
separately:

1) any comments on the relative performance of Nvidia versus VIA
chipsets for motherboards? I heard in the early days (about 2 years ago)
that some of the new motherboards for newer AMD processors had
problems.. also, what is hypertransport, by the way?

2) What is SATA all about? At present I have a pretty decent 40Gb
7200rpm Maxtor harddrive which is doing just fine. I think it's just
EIDE though (it's about 3 years old). Is IDE = ATA? Presumably with all
these new motherboards I can just still use this HDD?

with thanks
Dave

 

[Dee]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Dave wrote:

> just a few last questions on my asus k8 etc. thread that I've pulled out
> separately:
>
> 1) any comments on the relative performance of Nvidia versus VIA
> chipsets for motherboards? I heard in the early days (about 2 years ago)
> that some of the new motherboards for newer AMD processors had
> problems.. also, what is hypertransport, by the way?
>
> 2) What is SATA all about? At present I have a pretty decent 40Gb
> 7200rpm Maxtor harddrive which is doing just fine. I think it's just
> EIDE though (it's about 3 years old). Is IDE = ATA? Presumably with all
> these new motherboards I can just still use this HDD?
>
> with thanks
> Dave

1. --> You can find benchmark reviews at sites like:

www.tomshardware.com

I think the small difference in performance depends more on the board
engineering than the chipsets. However, presently nVidia chipset seem
to be more popular than VIA, especially for the overclockers.

2. --> Serial ATA (SATA) is a serial connection for drives that came
out a few years ago. For the most part there is not a significant
performance difference between SATA and the standard IDE, also referred
to as Parallel ATA (PATA). SATA uses a 4 conductor data cable vs a 80
conductor, with a 40 pin connector, and is supposed allow freer air flow
within the case. Yes, IDE = ATA

If you want to read more about ATA, IDE, SATA, etc., here are a couple
of URLs:

http://www.ata-atapi.com/

http://www.serialata.org/