Everyone who has a Epox 8k7a+, please read

[AnimEva]

I am looking for this board and i know everyone here has bought a motherboard, so for the people that bought the 8k7a+ with RAID, how much did you pay for it? and where? thanks.

David

 

[Boonesmi]

i dont think very many people have the + version, still kinda hard to find

price watch had one listed here

 

[Coligeon]

Well, at Newegg.com they have the 8K7A for 130 Dollars, but that ain't the raid version, sorry.

 

[AnimEva]

i checked pricewatch, was surprised to have only one there. what other ddr socket a board that has raid would you recommend?

 

[Zuluwarrior]

Epox sells the board right off their website for 179.99 which
equates to a 49.00 premium over the non raid and that is getting
very close to the cost of a pci raid card that would have the
advantage of being transportable. If you buy a board with raid on it
you get to buy a raid board every time u upgrade which a seperate
card aleviates, also, that way u get to pick the card's controller, promise, hpt etc.

just a thought.

 

[AnimEva]

but dont i waste a pci slot?

 

[Boonesmi]

gigabyte 7DXR its very similar the the epox same chipset
7dx is the non raid version
7dxr is raid

 

[CPROFITT]

<< but dont i waste a pci slot? >>



Err... the onboard raid still takes an IRQ so yes, you waste a PCI slot, but with the limited number of IRQ's available I am not sure if that matters.

 

[AnimEva]

thanks Boonesmi, but since the gigabyte board only have 5 pci, it is like getting an epox board and adding a raid card on it to me

 

[AnimEva]

CPROFITT, doesnt the onboard promise card for the normal epox 8k7a take up an irq as well? so adding a raid card would then result in 2 irqs taken up?

 

[Boonesmi]

the 8k7a doesnt have onboard promise so it doesnt use an irq

 

[Boonesmi]

actually the other epox board doesnt have onboard promise either, hehehe epox actually uses hpt raid on its + version

basically it boils down to.....
if your board has onboard raid (either promise, hpt,ami, etc) then it uses an extra irq.

 

[mrwade]

The Epox 8k7a+ is now available from.......Tiger Direct $179.97.

 

[bdyeager]

if you go with the non raid board you could get a hardware raid card which could be used to run raid 5 as well and the hardware is better than the software version infact the site had a great article on it yesterday http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.html?i=1491
bri

 

[AnimEva]

well raid 5 is overkill for me, i plan to mainly use raid 0, so i think software based is best for me.

 

[Boonesmi]

you guys should read the raid article at anands main page (posted yesterday)

i learned alot, i always thought hardware raid was better too now im not so sure

 

[SpideyCU]

I agree, hardware RAID cards are overkill, especially when you don't need something like RAID 5. The article said that out of all the software controllers, the Highpoint did among the best, and since that's what the 8K7A+, I'm still planning on getting this board.

Edit: And those hardware RAID controllers (specifically the Intel one) are EXPENSIVE!

 

[hokahknow]

You could also try the MSI K7T266 PRO-R with onboard promise RAID. It will be about $169. A little cheaper than the Epox and a lot cheaper than the Gigabyte. I am surprised ASUS hasn't come out with a RAID version of their DDR boards. Or have they??

 

[Darkluck]

If you're running win2k then you don't have to worry about irqs cuz it will automatically share the interrupt requests across the pci bus/southbridge. My friend had almost all of his irqs shared cuz he had a bunch of crap on his system and he never had any problems. I'd say get the onboard controller, cuz unless you're running a server I would say its not worth your time or money to get a raid card.