pci133 sata card in a pci33 slot

[polkadot]

sort of over my head here...
my intention is to get an 8 channel sata raid
controller, however all the reviews and specs
i find for them are based on using them in a
133mhz (or 100mhz) 64bit pci-X slot, which i dont
have. so what im wondering is what the performance hit
of a card like 3wares 9500s-8 or broadcoms BC4852
would be if they were crammed into a little 33mhz slot.
or has anyone seen a review of one of those cards installed
on a non industrial motherboard, say one of todays finer
nforce4 boards. ahem.
my other option i guess would be to get a motherboard
with pcix133 slots and a pci-express slot for my video
card. only those dont seem to exist.

 

[dhlucke]

I think this is a crashman question.

<font color=red><b>Long live Dhanity and the minions scouring the depths of Wingdingium!

 

[Crashman]

Hmmm, so long as you're buying another mother, you could get the MSI board with the open-ended x4 slot, and use a PCI-E x8 card in it, rather than buying a PCI-X 133 card. x8 cards should work fine in x4 slots, so long as the slot is open-ended like MSI's, and x4 is actually more than enough for these cards, due to the limittations of the attached drives (x4 is 1GB/s, the drives access cache at around 110MB/s with even slower media transfers).

So I'd probably go PCI-Express with the SATA RAID controller. Other than the MSI board with the open-ended x4 slot, you could use an SLI motherboard, there's nothing to prevent them from giving the other 8 pathways to something other than a video card.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[polkadot]

holy crap. PCIe sata controllers. jamis de ma vis.
i never knew such a thing existed, but it
appears to be just what i need. of course now i look
for one and all i can find is arecas ARC-1220.
pricey but nice. are there any other manufacturers
that have thse out now?

thank you so much for responding so fast. both of you
have really helped me understand my options.

 

[Crashman]

OMG, newegg is down! A few hours ago, nVidia was down! And Zalman USA has been down for days!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

nV is back up, <A HREF="http://www.zalmanusa.com" target="_new">http://www.zalmanusa.com</A> is still down, and Newegg isn't linked to their product directory, but the page still functions without products!

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Crashman]

Newegg's product directory is back up, now it's just Zalman USA that's out.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[polkadot]

anyone heard of this card from promise
http://www.promise.com/product/product_detail_eng.asp?segment=RAID 5 HBAs&product_id=156#
their SuperTrak ex8350
the only thing i notice about it is its x4 interface,
instead of x8 like Areca's ARC-1220, but its also almost
three hundred dollars less.
as you guys pointed out before x4 should be more than
enough, and the two cards appear to be powered by
the same 500mhz intel chip, so why the huge price
difference? is there something else im missing?

 

[polkadot]

specifically here
<A HREF="http://newsite.pagecomputers.com/store/Product_accessoriesx.asp?catalog_name=Storage+Devices&category_name=29g29c183s887&product_id=838797" target="_new">http://newsite.pagecomputers.com/store/Product_accessoriesx.asp?catalog_name=Storage+Devices&category_name=29g29c183s887&product_id=838797</A>
and here
<A HREF="http://www.topmicrousa.com/arc-1220.html" target="_new">http://www.topmicrousa.com/arc-1220.html</A>
but those prices are just the lowest ive found, and
represent the average spread.
if those prices are off in your opinion id love to know
why