mobo w/64bit PCI?

[dalezak]

Is there a motherboard that offers native 64bit PCI. Getting a couple Raptors and want to set up w/SATA-RAID 0. I understand that 32bit PCI is a significant bottleneck.

OR must I purchase a PCI SATA/RAID controller board? (not my first chioce.)

Thanks,
Dale.

 

[Vette73]

Depends what CPU/'s do you want to run.

A lot of the Opteron/AthlonFX boards have 64bit/66Mhz slots.

 

[dalezak]

Thanks for the reply.

Need P4 3.2 motherboard w/64bit PCI, SATA-RAID0. Any suggestions?

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: dalezak
Thanks for the reply.

Need P4 3.2 motherboard w/64bit PCI, SATA-RAID0. Any suggestions?

Arrggg... No I can't think of ANY. Since the P4 can't do SMP (dual CPU) no boards that I know were ever made for the P4 to have 64bit slots. Intel did this so it would keep sales of the Xeon up.

If anyone does make a P4 board with 64bit slots it would probable be Tyan. Check them out.

 

[Peter]

Does not exist. No P4 chipset offers 64-bit PCI. You'll have to go Xeon, or, cheaper and faster, AMD64. For these, there are chipsets that do offer PCI-X, on boards that run a single or dual Opteron. Technically, even single Athlon-64 boards can be made from those chipsets.

Either way, look at what Tyan have in store.

 

[trikster2]

Originally posted by: Peter
Does not exist. No P4 chipset offers 64-bit PCI. You'll have to go Xeon, or, cheaper and faster, AMD64. For these, there are chipsets that do offer PCI-X, on boards that run a single or dual Opteron. Technically, even single Athlon-64 boards can be made from those chipsets.

Either way, look at what Tyan have in store.

Serverworks makes a P4 chipset with 64 bit PCI. Not PCI-X just plain good ole 64-Bit PCI. Only 533mhz fsb though but the price for me was right $279 for my 2.4 Ghz Dell SC600.

Also if you get an i875 I don't believe the intel SATA raid is on the PCI bus?

 

[Peter]

If the SATA comes from the ICH5R south bridge, then it's off the PCI bus. Else, it is.

Note that the _chipsets_ don't care whether there's a P4 or a Xeon connected. Intel however wants to keep the markets separated, so using the more capable chipsets for P4 boards isn't too welcome. Have you seen an actual socket-478 board that uses ServerWorks Grand Champion or Intel E750x chipsets? I haven't.

 

[labgeek]

Originally posted by: Peter
... Have you seen an actual socket-478 board that uses ServerWorks Grand Champion or Intel E750x chipsets? I haven't.

Yes.



http://www.tyan.com/products/html/trinitygcsl.html

TYAN's Trinity GC-SL is the ideal platform for OEMs and System Integrators looking to offer feature-rich, yet cost-effective front-end servers with maximum I/O bandwidth. Based on the ServerWorks? Grand Champion? GC-SL chipset, the Trinity GC-SL supports the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor with Hyper-Threading and a 533MHz Front Side Bus. The Trinity GC-SL also supports multiple PCI-X/PCI cards, DDR memory, and ATI? RAGE XL?-based VGA - all in a compact ATX form factor. There are also multiple integration options for LAN including Gigabit & Fast Ethernet.

 

[Peter]

Ah! Grand Champion SL, unfortunately not the "WS" flavor that would have had AGP.

It's using the CIOB-X companion chip for twin independent PCI-X busses. So I/O throughput is going to be quite good, but the ATi Rage XL is not going to make anyone happy in the graphics department. And there's no FSB800 support either.

The ServerWorks chipsets have a mix&match architecture of core chipsets, I/O bus companions, and south bridges. Very much similar to AMD's 64-bit architecture.

 

[trikster2]

Originally posted by: Peter
If the SATA comes from the ICH5R south bridge, then it's off the PCI bus. Else, it is.

Note that the _chipsets_ don't care whether there's a P4 or a Xeon connected. Intel however wants to keep the markets separated, so using the more capable chipsets for P4 boards isn't too welcome. Have you seen an actual socket-478 board that uses ServerWorks Grand Champion or Intel E750x chipsets? I haven't.

Peter, according to this diagram from intel

linky

The ICH5R SATA raid is separate from the PCI bus.

Or am I reading the diagram incorrectly.

And yes my Dell 600SC has a Server Works socket-478 (p4) motherboard.

No AGP but it makes a nice lil sub $300 file server for the family room

 

[Peter]

You're reading the diagram right, you're reading me wrong. I said on the ICH5R the RAID is _off_ the PCI bus, not _on_ PCI

Nonetheless, the ICH5R does have a bandwidth problem, since the uplink from the ICH to the core chip is only 266 MB/s. That'll hardly do for two SATA, two PATA, a PCI bus, LAN, audio, USB2 and whatnot else. VIA, AMD and SiS chipsets have at least twice as much, with SiS excelling in particular.

 

[Vette73]

Best bet if you want SATA and 64bit PCI. Go with a Opteron/Athlon FX board and CPU.

trying to get what you want and use a P4 is going to be to many headaches.

 

[Peter]

Right ... the Athlon chipsets are mix&match like the ServerWorks ones, and AMD isn't quite as "convincing" in making the mainboard builders follow a marketing plot. So anyone who feels like it can put AMD's PCI-X tunnel chip on a single-CPU mainboard - even with someone else's AGP tunnel and south bridge. It's all HyperTransport ...