Does this mainboard exist?

[Noshter]

Ah, these forums are a nice change from the dictatorship that is the HardOCP forums.

That said, I'm looking for a mainboard with specifications similar to this:

Must-haves:

- Supports Dual P4 Xeon's
- Supports PC2700 DDR RAM
- Serial ATA built-in (this is a must, as I want the WDC Raptor drive and am installing an OS that doesn't and will never have drivers for an SATA controller card)
- USB controller -must- be UHCI (USB 2.0 is not required, but I would prefer to have it) ... EHCI and OHCI are not options.

Would also like:

- No onboard audio or ethernet. Onboard video is okay but by no means necessary.

Doesn't need to be an excellent overclocker ... just a stable board. I intend to use this system with multiple alternative OSes (BeOS speficially, Linux, QNX RTP and eCS also) so I have some restrictive hardware requirements. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks!

 

[Odeen]

Keep in mind that any onboard SATA EXCEPT what you have on an i875 board with ICH5R WILL be the equivalent of a PCI SATA card.

All it is is the controller chip integrated onto the motherboard as a PCI device, with traces run to the SATA connectors. It will even share an IRQ line with one or two of the PCI slots. The only benefit is cleaner cabling and less cards in the system - for better airflow.

The SATA controllers you see on nForce2, i845*, etc. motherboards are all Silicon Image, Promise or Highpoint devices, identical in functionality to the PCI expansion cards made by the same companies. They're not integrated onto the chipset.

 

[Viper96720]

Why not get a board with on board scsi and get a scsi drive instead? Don't know of any boards with PC2700 support. Check out supermicro for some different boards.

 

[alrox]

According to this site from intel.com, no chipset meets your requirements.

 

[Noshter]

Originally posted by: Odeen
Keep in mind that any onboard SATA EXCEPT what you have on an i875 board with ICH5R WILL be the equivalent of a PCI SATA card.

All it is is the controller chip integrated onto the motherboard as a PCI device, with traces run to the SATA connectors. It will even share an IRQ line with one or two of the PCI slots. The only benefit is cleaner cabling and less cards in the system - for better airflow.

The SATA controllers you see on nForce2, i845*, etc. motherboards are all Silicon Image, Promise or Highpoint devices, identical in functionality to the PCI expansion cards made by the same companies. They're not integrated onto the chipset.

Would the operating system need support (in the form of a driver) in order to work with a PCI SATA controller card? How is this handled?

 

[Viper96720]

Yes if you go to a drivers page for a motherboard with a sata controller. There will be drivers for it.
example

 

[Peter]

UHCI USB limits you to Intel and VIA chipsets - everyone else does OHCI. If you want chipset integrated SATA you'll need Intel ICH5 or VIA 8237 south bridges. That should narrow your search.