I need a board that will support ncq.

ingeborgdot · Mar 21, 2005

I have decided amd 939 board and a seagate w/ncq hard drive. How can I find a board that supports this?

ts3433 · Mar 21, 2005

Anything with the NF4 Ultra or SLI chipset.

BTW, you can still use the NCQ HD with regular SATA controllers--you just won't be able to get that additional minimal benefit that NCQ gives you.

ingeborgdot · Mar 21, 2005

So you are saying it must be an ultra or higher? Is there a way to be sure?? Thanks.

FastEddie · Mar 21, 2005

The specs for NF4 Ultra and NF4 Sli incorporate SATA II. Any of the NF4 boards that support 300mb/s sata data transfer (Ultra & Sli) support NCQ.

ingeborgdot · Mar 21, 2005

I talked to a tech from gigabyte and I asked him about their GA-K8NF-9. He said that it did support ncq but I can't find any place that says it does.

mdahc · Mar 21, 2005

Just spend the extra $25 or so for an nForce4 Ultra board. I wouldn't trust some random tech who isn't supported by some sort of technical documentation on Gigabyte's Web site.

ingeborgdot · Mar 21, 2005

I just found a review that does state that this board does support ncq but not satall. Would you still go for the ultra or is this still a pretty good board??? Thanks.

FastEddie · Mar 21, 2005

NCQ is a feature of SATA II. SATA II is a function of NF4 Ultra & Sli. I'd be weary of someone purporting SATA II on the plain jane NF4 as it's not incorporated as a function of the chip.

ingeborgdot · Mar 21, 2005

Here is the article
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_content.asp?id=gbnf44x&cookie%5Ftest=1
Look at what it says about ncq.

FastEddie · Mar 21, 2005

The board has four ports of Serial ATA/150 connectivity, allowing for RAID-0, RAID-1, or RAID-0+1 connectivity through nVidia?s excellent nVRAID interface. One thing to note here is that the nForce4-4x chipset does not support Serial ATA-II/300 connectivity like the nForce4 Ultra and SLI chipsets do. This is one of the differentiating factors between the standard nForce and the more expensive variants. The ports still support ATAPI (useful for SATA optical drives) and NCQ (for newer SATA hard drives), so missing out on SATA-II/300 will not be a major factor for most out there.

Missed the rest of the post. Says it supports NCQ, but that's still a function of SATA II

mdahc · Mar 21, 2005

At ZZF, the GA-K8NF-9 is currently $119 whereas the GA-K8N Ultra-9 (nForce4 Ultra) is $139.99. If you're on a budget, go for the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra ZENITH VE nF4 Ultra board for $107 at ZZF. On top of the SATA2 support, both have passive heatsinks whereas the GA-K8NF-9 does not. Are you really into Gigabyte or something?

ts3433 · Mar 21, 2005

IIRC, the passive heatsink on the initial VNF4/Ultras proved to be a major problem in overclocking. Apparently the NF4 runs so hot that passive cooling isn't quite practical.

anarchyreigns · Mar 21, 2005

All nForce4 chipsets support NCQ, be it 4x, ultra or sli.

mdahc · Mar 21, 2005

Originally posted by: ts3433
IIRC, the passive heatsink on the initial VNF4/Ultras proved to be a major problem in overclocking. Apparently the NF4 runs so hot that passive cooling isn't quite practical.

Then why has Gigabyte decided to use a passive heatsink on an nF4 Ultra and an nF4 SLI board? Furthermore, there's a huge thread full of success stories with the Zalman ZM-NB47J's passive cooling. Another thing, nF4 std.'s HT is locked to prevent OC'ing, and it's limited to 800MHz (not that 1GHz HTT has made a big difference).

Originally posted by: anarchyreigns
All nForce4 chipsets support NCQ, be it 4x, ultra or sli.

How do you know?

anarchyreigns · Mar 21, 2005

Because it's a feature of the nVidia nForce4 MCP's. The only difference between (SATA wise) the 4x and the Ulta/SLI is that its transfer rate is 1.5GB/sec as opposed to the 3GB/sec rate of the Ultra/SLI's.

mdahc · Mar 21, 2005

I meant, where is this documented on nVIDIA's site? There's no mention of NCQ here on nVIDIA's tech specs for the nF4 std.

anarchyreigns · Mar 21, 2005

They don't mention it in the tech specs for the Ultra or SLI either.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20041015990644.html
http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20041015917263.html

How do you think the Gigabyte mentioned in this thread is supporting it? They don't have a separate controller for it. It's coming from the nForce4 MCP.

ingeborgdot · Mar 21, 2005

Originally posted by: mdahc
At ZZF, the GA-K8NF-9 is currently $119 whereas the GA-K8N Ultra-9 (nForce4 Ultra) is $139.99. If you're on a budget, go for the Chaintech VNF4 Ultra ZENITH VE nF4 Ultra board for $107 at ZZF. On top of the SATA2 support, both have passive heatsinks whereas the GA-K8NF-9 does not. Are you really into Gigabyte or something?

Well, I just got done working with a chaintech board and wasn't overly impressed. It was ok but nothing like the gigabyte ones I have used in the past. Would anyone else recommend the chaintech over the gigabyte choices here?

ChineseDemocracyGNR · Mar 21, 2005

Originally posted by: mdahc

Then why has Gigabyte decided to use a passive heatsink on an nF4 Ultra and an nF4 SLI board? Furthermore, there's a huge thread full of success stories with the Zalman ZM-NB47J's passive cooling. Another thing, nF4 std.'s HT is locked to prevent OC'ing, and it's limited to 800MHz (not that 1GHz HTT has made a big difference).

The nForce4 supports 1GHz HTT, only the nForce4-4X is limited to 800MHz. And both are completely unlocked for overclocking, and do just as well as the Ultra and SLI chipsets.

The Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 has been updated to a passive heatsink in new revisions. The Chaintech on the other hand is now using active cooling.
This based on reports from people who bought these boards lately.

luky · Mar 22, 2005

if you look at specification of SATA - NCQ is part of SATA II, not SATA I. Hence nForce4 supporting SATA I doesn't support NCQ

http://www.serialata.org/docs/NCQ_TCQ_comparison_final.ZIP
http://www.serialata.org/docs/Native%20Command%20Queuing%20Final.pdf

ChineseDemocracyGNR · Mar 22, 2005

Well, the thing is you can have NCQ on a SATAI controller (see Intel's ICH6). I have no idea if the nForce4 and nForce4-4X support it though.

I can understand people not trusting Gigabyte's tech guy so I believe sending an e-mail to other motherboard makers or even nVidia might help. Or someone could try a hard drive with NCQ support on one of these boards, but I doubt anyone reading this has such combo.

ingeborgdot · Mar 22, 2005

Found some info that 4x does support ncq but not sata ll. I am looking at these boards. What would you choose? Gigabyte K8NF-9 4x, K8N Ultra 9 or MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum or would you go with something totally different???????

mdahc · Mar 22, 2005

Well, I just got done working with a chaintech board and wasn't overly impressed. It was ok but nothing like the gigabyte ones I have used in the past. Would anyone else recommend the chaintech over the gigabyte choices here?

Okay, I was just giving the Chaintech board as an example. If you're not overly confident about the Chaintech board, how about the Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA, which is currently $109 at Newegg? If you don't like going with not so well-known (retail) brands, then how about the Asus A8N-E or the EPoX EP-9NPA+ULTRA? These nF4 Ultra boards are either cheaper (Foxconn) or around $15 more than the Gigabyte nF4 std. I just think you'd be better off getting a board that definitively supports NCQ rather than wasting your time researching nF4 std.

Originally posted by: anarchyreigns
They don't mention it in the tech specs for the Ultra or SLI either.
http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20041015990644.html
http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20041015917263.html

How do you think the Gigabyte mentioned in this thread is supporting it? They don't have a separate controller for it. It's coming from the nForce4 MCP.

No one has conclusively proven that the Gigabyte board/nF4 std./4x supports NCQ. Furthermore, those links you posted state the nF4 Ultra and SLI support SATA2, which means they support NCQ.

Originally posted by: ChineseDemocracyGNR

Originally posted by: mdahc

Then why has Gigabyte decided to use a passive heatsink on an nF4 Ultra and an nF4 SLI board? Furthermore, there's a huge thread full of success stories with the Zalman ZM-NB47J's passive cooling. Another thing, nF4 std.'s HT is locked to prevent OC'ing, and it's limited to 800MHz (not that 1GHz HTT has made a big difference).

Click to expand...

The nForce4 supports 1GHz HTT, only the nForce4-4X is limited to 800MHz. And both are completely unlocked for overclocking, and do just as well as the Ultra and SLI chipsets.

The Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9 has been updated to a passive heatsink in new revisions. The Chaintech on the other hand is now using active cooling.
This based on reports from people who bought these boards lately.

If you look at my quote included in your post, I said the nF4 std., which is the same as the nF4 4x, is limited to 800MHz HTT.

ingeborgdot · Mar 22, 2005

That's my point. It probably would be better to go with one you know for sure works with it. You don't like the gigabyte K8N Ultra 9 or MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. I am not or have not heard alot about foxconn or epox. Everybody seems to think asus,abit,msi,dfi or gigabyte as what I see. I have been known to be wrong before.

mdahc · Mar 22, 2005

Originally posted by: ingeborgdot
That's my point. It probably would be better to go with one you know for sure works with it. You don't like the gigabyte K8N Ultra 9 or MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum. I am not or have not heard alot about foxconn or epox. Everybody seems to think asus,abit,msi,dfi or gigabyte as what I see. I have been known to be wrong before.

FYI, Foxconn is one of the largest OEM motherboard mfr.'s in the world (i.e. customers like Dell, Apple, Intel). They've traditionally stayed out of the consumer segment (especially for AMD motherboards), but they're currently looking to break into the market.

I need a board that will support ncq.

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