Upgrade path from IDE/PCI/AGP to SATA/PCI Ex?

[CoasterX]

I need to find an SATA/PCI Express motherboard compatible with all of my old hardware. I have four IDE drives, three PCI cards, and an AGP graphics card.

After some searching I found the Abit VT8 demoed at CeBIT last March. It seems an almost idealic solution but it's not available yet. Does anyone know when this is coming out?

Currently available is the ECS 915P-A with an "AGP compatible" slot But the PCI route is slower performing plus it has only one IDE channel.. as mentioned I have four drives in my old system so that's not giong to do.

What other options are there? I would prefer to upgrade to P4 570, Socket T LGA755 since that processor has got the highest scores in the software that I use (graphics apps, 3D rendering, video encoding).

Thank you for any suggestions you might have.

Kevin

 

[fishmahn]

That I know of, there are no Intel mobos that support both PCI-E and full AGP. There is a chipset for AMD's by Uli, and I think 2 mobos are out for it, from Foxconn & ECS I think. Its a good chipset as reviewed, but its for Athlon64s.

The rest of it is easy - if the mobo doesn't have enough IDE, buy a controller. The Intel 915+ chipsets all come standard with only 1 ide connector. Some mobos have added a 2nd with an add-on controller.

Hope it helps.

Mike.

 

[CoasterX]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Actually I do have a 48bit LBA compatible IDE controller card but it was purchased as a quick-fix and I was hoping to avoid using it on the new MB.

Well if there is no perfect solution for P4 then what are these ULi options you mentioned for Athlon64? I'm migrating from an Athlon T-bird and have no qualms with AMD. My only consideration is performance with the programs I use most.

-edit-

After some searching I came up with the ASRock 939Dual-SATA2. Tomshardware said it was "a bit slow". But it does have everything I need.

You said you thought there were two. What is the other one?

 

[fishmahn]

Hmmm, I thought it was ECS & Fox... but I found this ASRock Its got 4 ide and 3 PCI slots. Good Anandtech review of it here.

The advantage to staying with AMD is you don't have to worry about the 570's affinity for burning your dinner... (it's a very hot CPU and cooling it adequately is a concern - to say nothing of your electric bill)

For better performance look into the AMD X2 (dual core). For encoding and rendering they really close the gap in performance. Intel is (generally) still a bit faster in rendering/encoding tasks, but with a much smaller lead.

Mike.

 

[CoasterX]

I must be blind. I missed where you said Foxconn & ECS. Well add the ASrock to that list I guess. I'll check up on those others. Thanks for the help.

 

[endyen]

You would benefit a lot from one of the X2 chips. The X2 3800 is about the same price as the 570, but will do encoding much faster, and not have to throttle to stay alive.