Gigabyte GA-8KNXP Question

[Xab]

I saw this board and was curious, it says there is a Ultra320 SCSI onboard, now I know Ultra320 cards are only for 64bit PCI, because the 32bit PCI can't get the 320mb/sec speed, but with this motherboard that has it onboard, will I be able to get the high speed from an Ultra320 drive?

If anyone that knows a good amount on this topic could clear it up for me I would appreciate it =) Thanks

 

[Xab]

/bump, one of you smart folks must know

 

[mechBgon]

Ultra320 doesn't have to be connected to a 64-bit PCI bus. A 32-bit 33MHz PCI bus will top out around 120Mb/second, yes. If you want more SCSI throughput than that, you might have to go to a dual-Xeon board like the Thunder i7505 or a dual-AthlonMP board.

 

[Xab]

But this motherboard has Ultra320 SCSI on the board itself, not through PCI. Is it still limited despite being built onto the board?

 

[randumb]

I read an article on this board.

The Ultra320 SCSI is not integrated on the 8KNXP, but rather runs on a 33MHz 64-Bit PCI Bus. Therefore the Ultra320 SCSI has only a theoretical bandwidth of 266MB/s, but no SCSI drives currently even use that much bandwidth anyways.

Gigabyte is expected to come out with a 66MHz 64-Bit Bus version. This would carry the full capability of Ultra320 SCSI.

BTW, just if you were wondering...
32bit/33MHz - 133MB/s
32bit/66MHz - 266MB/s
64bit/33MHz - 266MB/s
64bit/66MHz - 532MB/s

 

[Xab]

But it will still give a U320 drive better performance than if it was on a U160 PCI controller right?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: randumb
I read an article on this board.

The Ultra320 SCSI is not integrated on the 8KNXP, but rather runs on a 33MHz 64-Bit PCI Bus. Therefore the Ultra320 SCSI has only a theoretical bandwidth of 266MB/s, but no SCSI drives currently even use that much bandwidth anyways.

Gigabyte is expected to come out with a 66MHz 64-Bit Bus version. This would carry the full capability of Ultra320 SCSI.

BTW, just if you were wondering...
32bit/33MHz - 133MB/s
32bit/66MHz - 266MB/s
64bit/33MHz - 266MB/s
64bit/66MHz - 532MB/s

How does that work? Neither the ICH5 nor ICH5R southbridges feature a second PCI bus, according to Intel's documentaion. Where did you read that?