MoBo based on a VIA K8T890 or nForce 4 chipset

[gsparesa]

Should I purchase a motherboard that has a VIA K8T890 chipset (i.e. Abit AX8) or a motherboard with a nForce 4 chipset (i.e. MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum Ultra)? The nForce 4 chipset includes SATA II connectivity. Is that something I could utilize in my new rig? Here is some data I obtained when I went on my half arse fact finding mission.

Should I require my new motherboard to support STATA II? It appears to me that SATA II is meant to address the issues of large-scale professional installations and will not benefit a PC system sporting a single SATA drive.

SATA I interfaces advertise a 150MB/sec peak speed but the fastest SATA drive is only around 60MB/sec.

SATA I is a scalable point-to-point interface supporting speed doubling. If you have 4 SATA I drives, each drive at 150 MB/s, connected to the multiple controllers you theoretically have a 600MB/s throughput. This is not a low-cost solution because you can connect only one disk per port which means 4 drives would require 4 ports.

SATA I interfaces operate at half duplex and only one command to work with. That?s fine in a video server application but probably will suffer from performance issues in transaction type processing.

SATA II interfaces advertise a 300MB/Sec transfer rate per-port.

SATA II interfaces allow multiple disks to the same port. (Port Multiplier ? i.e. two 1 to 4 port PM with one multi-lane cable) Higher transfer rates are necessary to be able to connect 4-8 disks to a single port.

SATA II interfaces support Native Command Queuing. NCQ enables the drive to take multiple requests for data from the processor and re-arrange the order to maximize throughput. Disk data can be gathered with fewer revolutions of the disk platter. However, disk manufactures are left to provide drives with the proper algorithms and computing power to take advantage of the NCQ feature.

My conclusion: I don?t need no stink?n SATA II in my new rig. Motherboards based on the VIA K8T890 chipset and the nVidia nForce 4 chipset both still need help in the sound department. Sound for the masses is not what I want in my gaming rig. nVidia could have won in this department but they lost my vote by opting on a cheaper solution that takes more computing power. So, the VIA K8T890 based motherboards appear to be a cheaper solution. I will be waiting for the Abit Abit AX8 to be released for sale.

 

[Megatomic]

I'll be looking for a high end uATX board from either in about a year. First one to the market gets my money.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

The ABIT AX8 can be pre-ordered at excaliberpc.com. The Albatron K8X890 Pro (K8T890 chipset) has Envy24PT audio.

 

[gsparesa]

Now we are talking. The Albatron K8X890 Pro may just fit my requirements perfectly. I hope I don't have to wait long.

The VIA Envy24PT is the latest addition to VIA's Envy line of Audio Controllers supporting up to 24-bit resolutions and 96kHz sample rates for an enhanced listening experience. Enabling 8-channel outputs, the VIA Envy24PT can support the latest DVD-Video Dolby Digital EX® and DTS ES® soundtracks for enhanced flyover effects, as well as having 4 simultaneous inbound channels. Like all Envy24 controllers, the VIA Envy24PT is designed to pass audio as cleanly and clearly as possible, bit-for-bit accurate.
The Envy24PT promises to substantially improve audio fidelity over previous solutions, as well as decreasing CPU utilization for improved performance in applications such as gaming."

The Albatron K8X890 Pro has a built-in VIA Envy 24PT audio chipset supporting 8-channel (hardware) audio, which allows the customer to use 7.1-channel amplifiers.

If Abit and Asus are going with PCIe X1 slots why would Albatron make a PCIe X4 slot?

What other motherboard with the VIA K8T890 chipset has the VIA Envy24PT audio chipset?

 

[gsparesa]

It appears that the K8X890 Pro will have a sibling called the K8X890 Pro II. The Pro Ii will have 8 ch audio and a mPower card.

What this mPOWER module does :
It brings down the mainboard MOSFETs (around the CPU) temperature by 35%.
What this means is that with the mPOWER you can overclock this board higher and/or has increased stability under extreme overclocking condition - since heat is the single biggest factor against overclocking and overclocking stability.

 

[gsparesa]

The K8X890 Pro & Pro II both come with PCIe X4 to support future PCIe X4 devices like SATA2 adaptors and gigabit adaptors that will come in PCIe X4. PCIe X4 is backward compatible with PCIe X1 devices.

The boards are available in Jan 2005.

 

[skgarach]

Has anyone heard of any issues with the k8t890 chipset having problems with 4 dimms? I've heard that the nforce4 will lower the speed of the RAM if there are more than 2 DDR modules running. I ask since i've already bought 4x512mb modules and planned on putting them in my new system.

 

[AnnoyedGrunt]

The DIMM speed is not a function of the chipset.

Remember that the memory controller on the A64 is on the CPU itself, and therefore all A64 chipsets will default to 333 MHz with 4 DIMMs (that is the JEDEC standard). However, almost all current mobo's allow you to manually bump the RAM speed back up to 400, and run out of spec. That is primarily a BIOS issue, and not a chipset issue.

If you check the Anadtech Mobo roundups, you will see a section where they test the RAM speed capability with 4 DIMMs. On almost all the boards it is possible to make the jump to 400; however it was usually necessary to change the command rate to 2T instead of 1T, which does affect performance a bit (I think this is the case, but you should double check the reviews).

I personally am a fan of the AX8 right now because of the passive chipset heatsink, but I also like the sound of the Albatrons with the higher end audio. Hopefully those have passibe heatsinks as well; I'll have to go check them out.

Thanks for the SATA research BTW. I agree with your assesment: that currently SATA 2 is not useful for the desktop environment. Also, I didn't know that in SATA 1 each drive was on a separate channel. That really made me realize that even for a RAID array, the SATA 1 speed is plenty.

Later,
D'oh!