Challenge: Find a Conroe motherboard which....

[vsonerud]

A challenge for all of you hardware experts on this forum:

Are you able to find me an existing or upcoming Conroe motherboard which satisfies the following requirements?:

* Core 2 Duo ready
* Firewire integrated
* at least 2 PCI 2.2 PCI slots
* integrated graphics

* (preferably 2 IDE ports - since I have 1 IDE DVDRW and 3 IDE HDs - not a strict requirement though since I also have a Promise TX2 ATA-100 controller card for reuse)

The upcoming G965 motherboards all seem to have PCI 2.3 support which is NOT compatible with my Hauppauge WinTV PVR-350 card.
(the PVR-350 card is a 5 volt keyed add-in card which is specifically NOT supported anymore by PCI 2.3 )

I have also failed to locate any other motherboards using other chipsets to fulfill the requirements above.

The closest I have found are the Asus P5W DH and the Asus P5N32-SLI SE cards. They do not have integrated graphics meaning that I would have to buy a PCI-Express graphics card . And these 2 cards are also quite expensive at the moment.

 

[thedarkwolf]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813128016
Just found that earlier tonight playing around. Was trying to get the users manual on Gigabytes website but its running extremely slow so I gave up.

 

[renethx]

You don't have to worry about the compatibility of your 5 volt keyed card with most (all?) of the current motherboards. PCI 2.3 specification removed the support for 5V cards. However, motherboard manufactures are still allowed to add support for 5V cards with PCI 2.3 and as a matter fact most current motherboards support 5V PCI cards. You can check this with the familiar white PCI slot with the notch at the inner end that supports 5V cards. The 3.3V-only slot has the notch towards the back, nearer the bracket to avoid the use of the 5V card in the slot and is colored green.

Please check

Core 2 Duo (Conroe & Merom) Motherboard List - With a Short Guide to Chipsets

Surprisingly every microATX motherboard with Intel 945G, 945GZ, 946GZ or ATI Radeon Xpress 200 chipset that supports Core 2 Duo lacks an IEEE 1394 controller. You will have to wait for newer Intel G965 or ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 boards. ASUS P5B-VM is a good candidate (2 x PCI 2.2; only 1 PATA connector though).

 

[vsonerud]

renethx, thank you for your clarification regarding PCI 2.3 and 3.3/5 volt and the physical slot differences and so on. Very useful information.

And thank you for the ASUS P5B-VM suggestion. Somehow that one must have slipped me by . With regards to motherboard selection I was initially on the lookout for a full ATX-size motherboard which could fulfill the requirements I mentioned in my first post. However, there seem to be very few ATX-boards with integrated graphics. And the few upcoming ones I did find from GigaByte had PCI 2.3 in their specifications, making me doubtful about compatability and so on.

So, if you have any other suggestions of exsisting or upcoming ATX-boards fitting the requirements mentioned I'm all ears

 

[renethx]

Yeah, integrated graphics is almost a synonym of microATX. There is very few ATX boards with IGP.

 

[thedarkwolf]

Is that Asus board available in the US anywhere or will it be soon? Haven't had any luck finding it for sale over here.

 

[renethx]

"late Summer, early Autumn 2007" according to Intel GPUs set for Autumn 2007.

 

[renethx]

The new product

ASUS P5L-VM 1394 (Intel 945G + ICH7)

meets the requirements:

* Core 2 Duo ready
* Firewire integrated
* at least 2 PCI 2.2 PCI slots
* integrated graphics

This is not available yet.