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Going for Abit's AT7....onboard video and LAN vs. PCI card info?

T

theNEOone

Diamond Member
Considering Abit's [silly] decision to have only 3PCI slots on their board, I just want to minimize the number of cards I stick in the thing. How does their onboad LAN compare to a 3COM 10/100 NIC? Specs on AT7 from Abit's site:
On board Realtek 8100B
single chip Ethernet controller interface
10/100Mb Operation
Will this affect my usage in any way? What about wake on lan, will I still be able to do this w/ the onboad option?

Turning to audio...I've got a sound blaster live platinum. Abit uses:
Realtek ALC650 (AC-Link)
Supports 6CH DAC for AC3 5.1 CH purpose
Professional digital audio interface supporting 24-bit SPDIF OUT
Although I'm less likely to ditch my SB Live, I'm still interested in finding out how abit's onboard choice measures up. Aside from any differences in sound quality and cpu utilization, I'd really hate to ditch my live drive. I honestly don't use it much, but it's just nice to know it's there.
Also, my mp3 player connects to parallel, and digital camera and remote control plug into my serial ports. Where could I find some serial to USB adapters, if there is such a thing available? (I think there are parallel to USB, but I could be mistaken.)
 
seriously, if you have so many legacy devices, it would be better for you to get a board with all the legacy ports.
 
You could get a PCI card with parallel/serial on it, got your MP3 player, remote and camera covered then. Sorry, don't know any brands offhand. I've seen a USB-serial/parallel things from Belkin, though I don't think (double check, I could be wrong) you get bi-directional parallel with them. Don't know if your mp3 player requires that or not, but something to check for if you do go this route. Found them...serial and parallel.

No personal experience with Realtek ethernet. The review at hardcoreware.net shows some CPU utilization numbers and contains some comments on the sound, directly linked page here. Wasn't quite sure what you were asking about the sound, but maybe that'll help.

I'm not questioning your decision to get this board or not, if you like it then it's for you. If you don't mind saying, I am curious why you've chosen this board though.

Good luck in your research and system building.

--Mc

 
hey, thx for the info guys.

mcarthy - i'm just really sucked in by the latest, greatest things, (many will question the at7's "greatness.") even if they don't make much practical sense for me. (dumb, i know). i just see this format of motherboards being the standard within a few quarters. i thought i'd just jump on it from the start and see how things are.
 
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