PX845PEV Pro...Best motherboard under $100?

[Tullphan]

Features, stability, overclocking, etc. Is this the best motherboard I can couple up with my 1.6a for under $100?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Tullphan]

Running one stick of Samsung PC2700 ram, a Radeon 8500LE, two 60 gb drives.
Anyone?

 

[First]

This particular Albatron board was a spectacular overclocker and very reliable. Although not the most feature-filled, you really shouldn't be too dissapointed with onboard LAN, sound, and USB 2.0 support, especially for a board that's under $100.

Go for it.

Btw, sorry for not responding to your PM.

 

[Tullphan]

Assuming I wanted to go with a motherboard that had raid, would I have to set it up as raid? I know on some motherboards they can double as ide ports. I'd really prefer to have 4 ide ports instead of 2 as I have 4 ide devices, but I may not have a choice.

 

[Xtasy]

If u need the features, the albatron pc845pe pro II and gigabyte one look good too.

 

[Tullphan]

You guys that are running a cdr-w, dvd & 2 hard drives...what are y'all doing as far as connecting them goes? One hard drive & cdr-w/dvd per cable or 2 hard drives per cable?
Is it worth the extra $50+ performance-wise (as far as data transfer goes?)?
Thanks.

 

[First]

Well, if you need to connect a CD-RW, DVD, and 2 HD's, you can do that just fine with the PX845PEV Pro. I'd suggest you:

1. Connect both your hard drives to a single IDE cable attached to the Primary IDE connector on the motherboard (which should be labeled "IDE 1" or something like that). Both drives will be automatically setup as a Master drive and Slave drive in your BIOS and at the POST screen. This just means they're sharing the same bandwidth on your IDE cable.

2. Do the exact same thing for your CD-RW and DVD drives, except you obviously can't attach an IDE cable to the Primary IDE connector on the motherboard, you'll have to attach it to the Secondary IDE connector, which should be labeled "IDE 2" or something similar to that. Both these drives will be setup as a Master/Slave configuration just like your hard drives.

Once you've connected all your drives, the only other thing you have to remember to do is set the jumpers on the back of your hard drives and optical drives correctly. If you don't, your computer will either not POST at all or will POST very slowly. You probably don't need any jumpers on your two slave drives (which is the drive on the middle part of the IDE cable). You'll have to figure out what the Master settings are for your other two drives though, as they vary with different manufacturers.

 

[cmdrdredd]

IDE was made for 2 devices per channel. There is no benefit for each device to have it's own channel.

 

[IntelConvert]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb... Well, if you need to connect a CD-RW, DVD, and 2 HD's, you can do that just fine with the PX845PEV Pro. I'd suggest you:

1. Connect both your hard drives to a single IDE cable attached to the Primary IDE connector on the motherboard (which should be labeled "IDE 1" or something like that). Both drives will be automatically setup as a Master drive and Slave drive in your BIOS and at the POST screen. This just means they're sharing the same bandwidth on your IDE cable.

2. Do the exact same thing for your CD-RW and DVD drives, except you obviously can't attach an IDE cable to the Primary IDE connector on the motherboard, you'll have to attach it to the Secondary IDE connector, which should be labeled "IDE 2" or something similar to that. Both these drives will be setup as a Master/Slave configuration just like your hard drives.

Once you've connected all your drives, the only other thing you have to remember to do is set the jumpers on the back of your hard drives and optical drives correctly. If you don't, your computer will either not POST at all or will POST very slowly. You probably don't need any jumpers on your two slave drives (which is the drive on the middle part of the IDE cable). You'll have to figure out what the Master settings are for your other two drives though, as they vary with different manufacturers.

Evan, I sure don't understand the rationale behind the advice that you're giving Tullphan here.

Based on the simple fact that only one IDE device can be accessed at any one time on the same IDE channel, Tullphan would certainly realize better overall disk I/O performance if the 2nd HDD is connected as IDE2 Master (that is, unless the 2nd drive is just used for backup). That's the way I've done it (with the same devices), using HDD#1 for Windows, Swap/Paging file, IE, Outlook, and all application programs. I use HDD#2 for all of my data, pics and music files. That way, the 1st HDD can access the O/S or programs at the same time that data is being read/written on the 2nd HDD (and viceversa). Then, on the assumption that more often than not, the CD-RW will be burning files from the 2nd HDD than from the 1st HDD (as in my use), I would make the CD burner the IDE1 Slave and the DVD the IDE2 Slave. Even when making a direct CD to CD copy (from the DVD to CD-RW), you stand to realize better performance with these 2 optical devices on separte channels (for the very same reason as placing the HDDs on separate channels).

If you (or anyone else) disagrees with me on this, I would sincerely appreciate learning of the error behind my reasoning (but please don't tell me it's because the HDDs will be slowed down by having an optical device on the same channel).

 

[First]

IntelConvert, there were two reasons I told Tullphan he should have two HD's on the same channel:

1. It looks like Tullphan doesn't want to setup a RAID array (and get a little extra disk performance), and so I guess I was under the impression that he simply needed his second HD purely as extra disk space (backup), and so there's no problem with setting it as Slave.
2. I was lazy and simply didn't want to explain every possible combination and scenario he could Master/Slave his drives, or what exactly he would use them for.

Besides, I don't know how much Tullphan knows about this, and so I wanted to keep my explanation short, and not have it be confusing by giving every possible combination and scenario out there.

Otherwise, you're 100% IntelConvert, although I would have to run some of my own tests to see the performance hit between shared and independent IDE channel performance. Um, maybe I can ask our storage guy to take a look at that, thanks for the idea.

 

[IntelConvert]

Evan, as your reply to Tullphan really surprised me, I kinda thought you might be thinking of the 2nd HDD strictly for backup and that's why I alluded to that possibility in my comments as being the only rationale for connecting the devices the way you suggested. For all I know, that may be what Tullphan has in mind, but if online use of both HDDs is the intent (such as the way I'm using mine), then there's no question in my mind that they should be connected to separate IDE channels for best performance.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: IntelConvert
Evan, as your reply to Tullphan really surprised me, I kinda thought you might be thinking of the 2nd HDD strictly for backup and that's why I alluded to that possibility in my comments as being the only rationale for connecting the devices the way you suggested. For all I know, that may be what Tullphan has in mind, but if online use of both HDDs is the intent (such as the way I'm using mine), then there's no question in my mind that they should be connected to separate IDE channels for best performance.

True, but if he really wanted the best performance he would go RAID.

 

[Tullphan]

Raid confuses me.
All I know about it is that with onboard raid you have 2 choices. One, you have a ghost on the 2nd drive (which supposedly slows performance) & the other (which i'm not sure about) where one has to worry about data corruption.
One of my 60 gigs is an IBM drive...hehehe...so i'm not sure if I want to go the raid route or not. I was thinking of using it mainly to store downloaded files (mp3z, apps, etc) that I can have quick access to in case I had to reformat my main drive.
My thinking was the same as IntelConverts', but with my case (Lian Li PC61), I don't know if that's possible or not due to the design of the case & the cables (hdd's at the bottom of the case, opticals at the top...cables don't have that much of a gap between connectors).
I may either have to go raid or put both hdd's on one cable & opticals on another...I just ain't sure what to do.

 

[senior guy]

Tullphan: Whether or not IntelConvert's setup is possible in your case, will ultimately depend on the placement of the board's IDE connectors, but with that case it will be tough to setup his recommended configuration (which IMHO is the best setup for a 2-drive productivity system).

While RAID 0 offers even better performance, it comes at increased risk exposure. While that's no biggie if you are just playing games, it's a very important consideration if your PC is productivity oriented. RAID 1 mirroring (ghosting as you put it) would definitely be slower than IntelConvert's setup. You will also have to increase your budget by about $35 for the RAID controller (onboard or PCI).

 

[Y23KC]

I bought the Albatron mobo and love it. Running a 2.53ghz at 2.9ghz right now with 512mb of Corsair pc3200 running at 407DDR. Very stable mobo with some good overclocking options. My only gripe is it has a cold boot issue if you are overclocking or otherwise I may could hit 3.0ghz+.

As far as raid goes, I use a Promise tx2000 ata133 pci raid controller. I found it to perform better than most onboard raid controllers. The bad part on the raid controller is it is a little pricey. Paid around $75 for it but it came from some previous systems I've used so it keeps getting recycled.

 

[Tullphan]

So the way the board is set up & the way my case is constructed, along with the way cables are designed, it looks like i'm either going to have to splurge an extra $40 for the Pro II w/raid or put both hard drives on one cable & both optical drives on one cable.
Considering that i'll mainly use my 2nd hard drive for storage, is the extra $40 worth it?

 

[edsmith42]

Hey Y23KC, what temp is your proc being reported at under a full load?

I've got a 2.4 that insists on running at between 69 and 71.5C with a nice Alpha heatsink and good fan. I'm beginning to wonder if there's just a temp sensor issue with this board...

Ed

 

[Ynog]

Tullphan,

On the questions of the 40 dollars being worth it. When you say storage, do you mean storage
as in just old files (programs, mp3, movies, etc..) or, backup of the original hard drive.

If you are using it as a backup, then paying the extra 40 dollars for the raid, so you could do raid 1 (Mirror),
is worth it. However if you are using it for extra storage, and you don't use the files much on the storage drive,
then I don't think the $40 dollars is worth it. You would get a performance increase, however if one of the drives
dies you loss the information on both of them. So the data on the storage drive goes if the main hard drive dies.
The question there is, not just performance vs price but performace and risk vs price. IMO if you use the second
drive as just data storage, I would go with the Pro not the Pro II, based on the raid choice. Thats just my opinion

 

[IntelConvert]

Originally posted by: Ynog
Tullphan,

On the questions of the 40 dollars being worth it. When you say storage, do you mean storage
as in just old files (programs, mp3, movies, etc..) or, backup of the original hard drive.

If you are using it as a backup, then paying the extra 40 dollars for the raid, so you could do raid 1 (Mirror),
is worth it. However if you are using it for extra storage, and you don't use the files much on the storage drive,
then I don't think the $40 dollars is worth it. You would get a performance increase, however if one of the drives
dies you loss the information on both of them. So the data on the storage drive goes if the main hard drive dies.
The question there is, not just performance vs price but performace and risk vs price. IMO if you use the second
drive as just data storage, I would go with the Pro not the Pro II, based on the raid choice. Thats just my opinion

While some may consider RAID 1 (mirroring) a backup, it only exists on-line, which makes it vulnerable to power failures, viral infections, corruption, etc. A proper backup methodology utilizes off-line media. Also, if by the term 'storage', Tullphan really means frequently accessed data and/or picture files, my original comments apply. One more thing for Tullphan's awareness is that with a 2-drive RAID array, both drives should be a matched pair (somehow, I got the impression that they may not be the same)!

 

[Tullphan]

IntelConvert,
You are correct about my hard drives not being identical. While they are both 60gb, one is a Maxtor Diamond Max & the other is an IBM Deskstar.
You can see my concern about the combination of Raid being risky to go along with the Deskstar's reputation...hehehe.

 

[Tullphan]