questions about kt266a, raid, and

[Hoo]

i want to upgrade my pc and have been checking out prices, raid, chipsets, cpu etc.
here are my questions:

can i not run raid on a raid motherboard with 2 harddisk (1 new), 1 dvd, 1 cdrw, and 1 ide zip?
what is the best configuration for all these devices?

is there any kt266a motherboard that still supports my pc133 ram? will there be one?

would anyone recommend the retail amd athlon with heatsink and fan?
how hard is it to install the heatsink and fan? Is it necessary to use the artic glue?

is agp-pro important? is it going to replace agp 4x?

what is the quality of A7V266-E onboard 6 channels C-Media-CMI-8738 Audio?
why there are only 1 line-out if it has 6 channels?

is my current power supply enough to support the kt266a motherboards?
(Enlight 7?? mid tower 300W)

why are people so excited about usb 2.0? is there a cool device i am missing?

are there any better stuffs, cpu/motherboards, coming out soon? what are they?

thanks for reading and answering these questions.

 

[Boonesmi]

a motherboard with a raid controller will have 2 extra ide ports (so a total of 4, and each supports a master and a slave, so a total of 8 devices)

the raid controller usually can either work as a raid, or as just an extra ata100 controller (in your case you want to set it to just be an ata100 controller)
raid controllers usually dont support anything but hard drives...

so in my opinion the best setup would be each of your hard drives set as master (with no slave) on each of the raid ports

then put the cdrw as a master (with no slave) on one of the onboard ata ports, and then put the dvd as master with zip as slave on the last ata100 port

 

[NelsonMuntz]

<< i want to upgrade my pc and have been checking out prices, raid, chipsets, cpu etc.
here are my questions:

can i not run raid on a raid motherboard with 2 harddisk (1 new), 1 dvd, 1 cdrw, and 1 ide zip?
what is the best configuration for all these devices? >>


Onboard RAID on a motherboard gives you the ability to have a total of eight IDE devices if you want. If you are actually using the RAID channels as RAID channels, then you would want four of those devices to be hard drives and four not hard drives. If you just use the extra channels as more IDE channels, then you can connect whatever devices you want. The five divices you have listed would work fine. You probably aren't going to use the RAID (at least that's how it sounds from your statement), so I would say put all of the devices on their own channel except the IDE zip and slave it to the DVD-ROM. So it would be: RAID channel 1 master: boot harddisk, RAID channel 2 master: second harddisk, IDE channel 1 master: DVD-ROM, IDE channel 1 slave: Zip 100, and IDE channel 2 master: CD-RW.


<< is there any kt266a motherboard that still supports my pc133 ram? will there be one? >>


Nope and nope. The KT266A is designed for DDR. If you want something that uses both and still performs well, check out the ECS K7S5A which uses the SiS 735 chipset, but doesn't have RAID.


<< would anyone recommend the retail amd athlon with heatsink and fan?
how hard is it to install the heatsink and fan? Is it necessary to use the artic glue? >>


I would recomment the retail AMD CPU if and only if you don't plan on overclocking and you like the 3 year warranty. It is not necessary to use Arctic Silver II (which is not a glue) but if you want to overclock, it will help keep things cooler.


<< is agp-pro important? is it going to replace agp 4x? >>


Not sure on this myself except that it is newer than 4x and I think makes the mobo ready to accept a larger number of potential video cards.


<< what is the quality of A7V266-E onboard 6 channels C-Media-CMI-8738 Audio?
why there are only 1 line-out if it has 6 channels? >>


My understanding is that the quality of this soound system is very good and an improvement over most onboard sound systems. Line-out is different from speaker out, so I think there is more than one speaker out.


<< is my current power supply enough to support the kt266a motherboards?
(Enlight 7?? mid tower 300W) >>


It should be okay, but it is borderline. Probably not good for overclocking or adding many more devices.


<< Why are people so excited about usb 2.0? is there a cool device i am missing? >>


USB 2.0 is faster than old USB and even slightly faster than firewire. Firewire and USB 2.0 are very good for video capture, so you just need to have what your digital video camera needs.


<< are there any better stuffs, cpu/motherboards, coming out soon? what are they? >>


There is always new stuff on the horizon, but the landscape for AMD CPUs looks pretty sweet right now with a lot of versatility and not a lot of expense, so it is a great time to jump back in.


<< thanks for reading and answering these questions. >>


No problem.

 

[Boonesmi]

hehehe i guess i should answer some of your other questions

i belive the kt266a chipset supports pc133 ram, but.... i don't know of any board makers that actually implemented it (and have dimm slots for pc133)

i prefer to buy oem just cause its cheaper, the only difference is the retail has longer warranty and it come with a hsf (the hsf isnt that good, but it will work fine as long as you dont overclock very much) the retail hsf comes with a thermal pad, but if you buy a different hsf you may need to also buy some thermal paste (and yes you need to use either a thermal pad or thermal paste or your cpu will overheat, and may be damaged)

agp pro doenst really have much benefit for the average person, because the average person doesnt want to use an agp pro card (agp pro slot will hold any agp card or agp pro card.... a plain agp slot will only hold plain agp cards) about the only time you would need an agp pro slot would be if you wanted one of the high end cad/cam agp pro cards ..... all the card you probably have ever seen are just plain agp

yes its good sound quality

yes your enlight will probably be enough power

i dont know much about usb 2.0 except that its alot faster, but from what i understand there arent very many usb2.0 devices available

 

[darth maul]

<< can i not run raid on a raid motherboard with 2 harddisk (1 new), 1 dvd, 1 cdrw, and 1 ide zip? >>



Yes you can run most onboard raid controlers in a non-raid fashison. I think the eception to that rule is on the MSI board; its ONLY for raid. But boards like the Abit and Soyo, the raid IDE ports can be used for for non-raid setups if you like. Although most or alteast some will warn against using CD rom drives on those ports.



<< is there any kt266a motherboard that still supports my pc133 ram? will there be one? >>



No, and I don't think so, its all DDR!



<< would anyone recommend the retail amd athlon with heatsink and fan? >>



I would only recommend it if you are not going to overclock. If you are into overclocking, get the OEM version and a nice fat Alpha or other heatsink + fan to put on the chip.



<< how hard is it to install the heatsink and fan? Is it necessary to use the artic glue? >>



Its not all that harder then installing ram or a video card. Ya, you have to be careful, but its pretty easy. Your second question here is the problem. No you don't want to use the artic sliver epoxy. But yes you want to use some kind of grease or other thermal interface material. Artic silver makes the best stuff, comes in a 3gram syringe, just don't use their epoxy on the chip to heatsink interface. Epoxy is for life, their normal Artic Silver II grease is removable. Oh, if you go with the retail heatsink fan, or they normally use a "thermal tape" as it were. Less mess, easier for a newbie to do, BUT it is lower performaning.



<< is agp-pro important? is it going to replace agp 4x? >>



Not really, and its seperate technologies. Pro slots are more compatible, but at the same time, there are so few pro cards, it is a non-factor at this time.



<< what is the quality of A7V266-E onboard 6 channels C-Media-CMI-8738 Audio? why there are only 1 line-out if it has 6 channels?
>>



I will defer most of this to a Asus expert, but I think you actually need to buy an adaptor to get full 5.1 support. Kind'a like Soyo's Dragon+, where they included the adaptor.



<< is my current power supply enough to support the kt266a motherboards? (Enlight 7?? mid tower 300W)
>>



Some will say yes, some will say no. I say it depends. Are you overclocking? How many devices will you have including IDE, PCI, and anything else you will be plugging into the PS power connectors or into the motherboard itself? Duron or Athlon? 700MHz or 1.67GHz? See it all depends...



<< why are people so excited about usb 2.0? is there a cool device i am missing? >>



Thats a good question, cool devices now? Not many, in another 3-4months prolly lots...



<< are there any better stuffs, cpu/motherboards, coming out soon? what are they? >>



There's always better stuff coming out soon..... . any in the next 3-4 months that will rock your world? prolly not...



<< thanks for reading and answering these questions. >>



No problem, and welcome to anandtech, enjoy your stay.

PS not so many questions in one post next time, my fingers hurt.

 

[darth maul]

I guess I don't type as fast as the other guys, when I started no one had replied yet hehehe.....or maybe I was just the last person to see the post .......

 

[jcmkk]

I want to clearify on the AGP Pro slot subject. AGP Pro has a couple extra connectors that let you pump more power into the card. As far as I know, no AGP cards currently use AGP Pro. I wouldn't worry about it. And I'm doubting that your power supply is going to work with the KT266A boards. I would try it, but be ready to get a new one if you need to. The KT266A only supports DDR RAM.

 

[Boonesmi]

agp pro cards have been out for years, they are mostly just high end cad/cam cards though (everyday pc users dont really see them)


and.... kt266a chipset does support pc133 ram (sdr) but, i dont know of any board makers that actually added 168 pin dimm slots