Asus/DFI delema

[velocci]

Hi there, I'm building a new machine soon and I decided a while ago that i'd be be getting the Asus A8N32-SLI delux motherboard. One of the reasons is cause if i ever do SLI gaming, each PCIe slot would be at 16X rather than 8X like other mobos. But I just realized that the DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 SLI-DR Expert has 8 SATA ports and their IDE ports have raid. The Asus mobo has 5 SATA ports (one is external) and its IDE ports don't have raid, but the pcie slots are both 16x with SLI. So my question is, is the dual 16X pcie slots in SLI mode make a big difference over the 8X that you'd get with the DFI mobo?

 

[fishmahn]

For video cards, nope. Cards today don't use all the bandwidth of an x8 slot. In a couple years that may change, but today x8 is more than enough.

Mike.

 

[miston]

The Asus has four Sata2 ports from the Nvidia, and two Sata2 ports from the Silicon chip, for a total of 6 Sata-2 ports. None are external that I can gather.

The DFI has four Sata-2 and four Sata-1 ports, for a total of 8.

Both motherboards have the same Nvidia RAID controllers, so you can still span the RAID to the IDE ports. But the 2nd RAID controller is SATA-2 on the ASUS, but only 2 ports instead of 4 like the SATA-1 Silicon chip on the DFI.

I HIGHLY doubt I would ever put 8 SATA hardrives in my machine. Six would definately be plenty for me. And if you really need that much space, at current capacities you could have roughly 3 terabytes (6 x 500 gigs) with the Asus, AND they are all at SATA2. (Though the Western Digital drive, which is SATA-1 is faster than the Hitachi which is SATA2, but down the line SATA-1 might end up being a bottleneck.)

PLUS the ASUS adds 8 phase power.

I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm going with the ASUS or waiting until DFI releases a X16 motherboard, which I would expect will be any week now?

 

[velocci]

so you think the dual 16x SLI with the Asus is alot better than the dual 8x SLI with DFI? or is it not going to be noticable?

The Asus has four Sata2 ports from the Nvidia, and two Sata2 ports from the Silicon chip, for a total of 6 Sata-2 ports. None are external that I can gather.

The DFI has four Sata-2 and four Sata-1 ports, for a total of 8.

Both motherboards have the same Nvidia RAID controllers, so you can still span the RAID to the IDE ports. But the 2nd RAID controller is SATA-2 on the ASUS, but only 2 ports instead of 4 like the SATA-1 Silicon chip on the DFI.

I HIGHLY doubt I would ever put 8 SATA hardrives in my machine. Six would definately be plenty for me. And if you really need that much space, at current capacities you could have roughly 3 terabytes (6 x 500 gigs) with the Asus, AND they are all at SATA2. (Though the Western Digital drive, which is SATA-1 is faster than the Hitachi which is SATA2, but down the line SATA-1 might end up being a bottleneck.)

PLUS the ASUS adds 8 phase power.

I'm in the same boat as you, and I'm going with the ASUS or waiting until DFI releases a X16 motherboard, which I would expect will be any week now?

 

[miston]

From the reviews I've read, right now none of the games or the graphic accelrators need the X16 throughput. So right now you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.