I'm trying to find a good overclocking motherboard that I can still use my old IDE hard drives and DVD drives on, but it seems that most of the new boards only have 1 IDE port. I was reading over Tom's review here (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/13/shootout_at_the_core_2_corral/page6.html) and I think every one of these only has the single port. Is this a chipset limitation or are there some good boards out there that have the 2nd IDE? Also, I'm assuming that the P965 is the best chipset right now for a Core 2 Duo chip.
The new Abit IB9 has 2 IDE channels and runs the 965 chipset - I chose it for a buddies system for that exact reason (a couple 500GB IDE drives as well as IDE DVDRWs). Can't speak for its performance or reliability yet, I'm on Toms to find solutions to my boot problems!
Outside of the IB9 the only other MB based off the 965p chipset that has 2 IDE ports is one made by EPOX. Its a driverless solution that creates an onboard SATA to IDE bridge, but it creates cable clutter, OC's poorly, and only accepts one IDE device per channel.
You might want to look at the 650i sli boards. They have 2 native IDE channels as well as SATA II. 8)
Just my 2 cents
I'm trying to find a good overclocking motherboard that I can still use my old IDE hard drives and DVD drives on, but it seems that most of the new boards only have 1 IDE port. I was reading over Tom's review here (http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/11/13/shootout_at_the_core_2_corral/page6.html) and I think every one of these only has the single port. Is this a chipset limitation or are there some good boards out there that have the 2nd IDE? Also, I'm assuming that the P965 is the best chipset right now for a Core 2 Duo chip.
Thanks,
Brian
Brian,
Pick a good Mobo[try to shy away from Asus] and get a PCI IDE card. They're inexpensive and easy to use.
By way of reference, I have a Gigabyte 965P-DS3 and a SIIG PCI ATA133 controller. I have two optical drives, a tape backup drive, a zip250 and zip750[and I swear if anyone asks me why I have both, I'll flog them]. So I needed one too. Haven't had any issues either.
Thanks everyone. I have an old IDE card that I thought about using, but I hate to use one of the PCI slots since new boards only have 3 of them. I may have to make that sacrifice though since I don't want to buy new hard drives yet.
How are the 650i boards at overclocking? I want to buy one of the new E4400 chips when they come out as it seems this would be easier to overclock than the E4300 because you don't have to push the mobo as hard.
I also have the Gigabyte DS3. I needed to hook up three ide devices. I hooked up my DVD burner and my Seagate HDD to the only ide slot available. For my last ide drive I bought a USB to ide converter. Works great and it's portable.
After a lot of looking, the DS3 seems to be the best bet for me. I like that it has 3 PCI slots for my older cards and a parallel port for my laser printer. It also seems to get high marks for overclockability. I can hook my HD up to the single IDE connector and get a USB enclosure for my DVD drives. I may take apart the enclosure and just wire it up permanently inside my PC case.
Does the DS3 allow you to change the CPU multiplier? I had thought Intel locked that, but then I read things like this: "The E4300 core is not crippled in any way, so you can expect the same performance out of the E4300 if you were to lower the multiplier to 7x and raise the FSB to 266MHz. " I'm not sure if that is just a hypothetical statement or if you can really do that. If so, then I guess there is not reason to wait for an E4400 as I originally thought about doing.
The DS3 does not allow you to RAISE the multiplier, but like many other OC'ing boards it does allow you to LOWER the multiplier. By the way, my DS3 OC's great, the only thing holding it back is the RAM I bought!
I just bought the USB to Ide cable converter. I didn't mess with the external encloser. Why bother? I'd admit it doesn't look as elegant but I saved 20 bucks.
From what I've read some where, it says the Intel 965 chipset does not
support native IDE because Intel is trying to push SATA into
the mainstream. Most motherboards these days that uses the new 965 chipset
comes with 1 IDE and that's controlled by a 3rd party controller
e.g. (JMicron).
