rant against onboard/non-legacy movement

[crobusa]

If I've turned technophobic, kindly knock some sense into me, please.
I just read a review of Abit's MAX motherboard, and I was stuck by their view of the future. From what I know and am told, on board audio and lan take up precious processing cycles that games need. It seems, IMHO it goes against the very principles of the overclocker, who desires to squeeze every utility of power from his machine, despite the lack of an "killer app" that needs the capability. The salt in the wound comes from 3 PCI slots.

Secondly, the triumph of the board supposedly comes from the lack of legacy support, something Anandtech discussed in their IDC coverage. I am all for taking out the garbage, but find myself curious why PS/2 is on the way out. As for floppys, even CD-Rs to my knowledge, can't be written to across a network or boot. I find it painfully ironic that the PS/2 adapter card that came from my old Pentium/3.1win, may find itself in an XP/XP machine. (If the industry follows Abit's lead)

Thirdly they've replaced these with 6+ USB, and 2 Firewire, and 6 IDE channels. (4 IDE channels are on the raid controller which hates ATAPI.) 4 port powered USB hubs cost $20 at Compusa, Firewire comes on SB live, and Promise cards cost $30 at Newegg, effectivly giving a KR7-Raid every benefit that MAX has.

I realize the MAX wasn't designed for everyone, but w/ the $200 price destroying the value segment, and the onboard hurting the gamers, I'm trying very hard to imagine who's the target audience.

 

[Peter]

Well first of all "onboard" doesn't inherently mean "CPU driven". The chips used for onboard LAN, FireWire, USB et al are just the same PCI chips that are being used on cards. Think again. Same for sound - there are just as many stupid CPU driven PCI audio cards as there are excellent onboard solutions.

Why PS/2 on the way out? Because it's the oldest, slowest, most CPU cycle eating piece of junk in there. That 8042 Keyboard/Mouse controller unit dates back to the mid seventies! USB is on the PCI bus, has a sophisticated engine that handles the communication without the CPU having to fiddle every single bit across an 8-bit ISA bus controller.

Same thing for the floppy port - if you want FDD, you're supposed to use either an IDE attached SuperDisk drive, or an external USB drive like every MAC user does too. Finally, you're actually supposed to move on to bigger media - to Mount Rainier CDRW or something.

So once you got the facts sorted, legacy-free is actually the way to go.

regards, Peter

 

[AndyHui]

I fully agree with Peter here. The PS/2 units are still part of the ISA bus. Get rid of those and you have nearly entirely removed the ISA bus (with the exception of the floppy).

If someone doesn't make a move, we'll still be stuck with the same old legacy items for years.....we have to move forward.

Sure, we were all dragged kicking and screaming in the 32-bit OS era with Windows 95....it wasn't perfect, but look at where we are today. There are many very good reasons to dump much of the older items.

 

[Swanny]

I think onboard stuff is great most of the time. I like onboard ethernet all the time, but it's hard to find in most boards. Onboard audio is good simply to have. You may not use it right away, but if that board goes into another machine it could be used. Same thing with onboard video.

In short: Onboard is great as long as your aren't paying an arm and a leg for it.

 

[birddog]

My $.02 worth is along the lines of crobusa's. Like many people, I have a digital cameria with a serial download, a parallel port printer, and other 'legacy' devices (scanner, etc..). Motherboard makers moving away from supporting these are forcing people to replace perfectly good equipment. I just upgraded to a KT266a board & had to dump the best modem I have ever had since ISA slots are no longer put on boards. I just built a new computer for my father & had to use an Abit KT133a board instead of a 266a board because he cannot do without an ISA slot for a propriarity ISA interface card he owns.

Keep serial ports, keep Parallel ports, and most importantly, keep an ISA slot or two (or provide some sort of PCI/USB adaptor card like you have for high speed serial & parallel devices).

 

[Superwormy]

If you have legacy devices then DON'T BUY the board with no legacy connections. With the pace which computers move at now, in another few years no one will have legacy devices anymore (or at least the majority of people won't) and thats what manufacturers go on, MOST computer users ARE NOT OVERCLOCKERS, so MOST MANUFACTURERS WILL NOT gear motherboards towards the very tiny number of computer users who are overclocking.

It's not like legacy supporting boards are gonna completely dissappear all the sudden, you have a few more years before that becomes a serious concern.

 

[jaeger66]

<< If I've turned technophobic, kindly knock some sense into me, please.
I just read a review of Abit's MAX motherboard, and I was stuck by their view of the future. From what I know and am told, on board audio and lan take up precious processing cycles that games need. It seems, IMHO it goes against the very principles of the overclocker, who desires to squeeze every utility of power from his machine, despite the lack of an "killer app" that needs the capability. The salt in the wound comes from 3 PCI slots.

Secondly, the triumph of the board supposedly comes from the lack of legacy support, something Anandtech discussed in their IDC coverage. I am all for taking out the garbage, but find myself curious why PS/2 is on the way out. As for floppys, even CD-Rs to my knowledge, can't be written to across a network or boot. I find it painfully ironic that the PS/2 adapter card that came from my old Pentium/3.1win, may find itself in an XP/XP machine. (If the industry follows Abit's lead)

Thirdly they've replaced these with 6+ USB, and 2 Firewire, and 6 IDE channels. (4 IDE channels are on the raid controller which hates ATAPI.) 4 port powered USB hubs cost $20 at Compusa, Firewire comes on SB live, and Promise cards cost $30 at Newegg, effectivly giving a KR7-Raid every benefit that MAX has.

>>



So don't upgrade. Why should the rest of us have to deal with archaic technology because you don't know when to pull the plug? Onboard peripherals don't use any more CPU cycles than PCI cards unless you're talking bout basic AC97 codecs or soft modems, and even those would barely make a dent in today's CPUs. And what difference does the RAID controller's ATAPI compatiblity make? Do you know anyone with 5 CDROM drives(to fill up the main IDE channels)? I'm not real big on onboard peripherals, but I'm totally in favor of removing the ISA bus. I have no floppy drive, no serial, parallel, PS/2, or ISA devices and I'm pretty happy about it.

 

[McCarthy]

I already did my ranting about this in the thread in general hardware here so I won't go into that again.

The one comment I did have was to Superwormy. It may happen quite quickly actually. Look at how fast ISA slots disappeared, one day we were all running board with 1 or 2 of them with our PII's, then suddenly they were all gone. A major reason I grabbed an Iwill KK266-R was for that 1 ISA slot (for a modem I still don't want to replace).

I guess that's why I got so worked up, that and the attitudes covering what could otherwise be conversation. If nobody speaks out then PS/2 goes away. By the explanation given by AndyHui it seems as long as the FDD controller is there then removing the PS/2 ports themselves isn't gaining performance...or is it? Followup to that is do they cost CPU cycles just by being there or do they have to be in use for that hit?

Maybe if I'd had better luck with USB I'd be more in favor. I'd still have to give up my comfortable and perfectly good keyboard, but I'd live. Just that I've had poor luck with USB. Two different USB-ethernet adapters would quit working for no reason until I unplugged and replugged them, one Linksys, one Dlink. My Logitech webcam would quit working or start lagging the system, especially after a second use without a reboot. Scanner worked, it would occasionally need an unplug/replug or a reboot, but I think that was related to the camera. Joystick and mouse both fine. BTW, all those devices were tried on different machines, Soyo, Iwill, Gigabyte being the motherboards represented.

The real irony being a friend had the same Logitech webcam, but in the parallel port version, and his never caused problems. Mine's been disconnected, his still gets used.

The onboard sound is a trend that is with us. I wish it wasn't there, just a waste of money and board space to me, but there it is. Like I said in the other thread, I'd be for removing old stuff, but don't replace it with new clutter. Just give me a motherboard with tons of PCI slots without trying to make the motherboard into a glorified USB hub.

--Mc

 

[crobusa]

<< Do you know anyone with 5 CDROM drives(to fill up the main IDE channels >>


No, but I do recall many moaning that each CD-ROM should get it's own channel for bandwidth purposes, (before burn-proof, I suppose) Also, most DOS/low level disk utilities I've tried will not work with an HD in the raid channel. (Western Digital's own CD util refuses it.)


<< Why should the rest of us have to deal with archaic technology because you don't know when to pull the plug? >>


As far as onboard is concerned, my only experience has been with ugly video that sucks 25% of system memory, powered speakers only, and ugly winmodems with little source code, with Microsoft making proprietary software junk like WiFi in the future (slashdot). But, if you say manufactures have agreed to stop stripping components to save an extra $1, and Microsoft stopped making bloated drivers to control the ugly things, I'll take your word for it.
And with the miracle of today's power, who cares bout' a few FPS or a higher benchmark? And it's truly a pity that the companies I work for weren't enlightened to see computers as a disposable item. I mean when they spent 20 grand on a dos solution, they actually expect it to work 15 years down the road. If I recall my economics class, that's the division between a capital good or a consumer good lies.
I'm not trying to start a flame war. It's just when people cry that it's necessary to dump the present infastructure for stability, I keep wondering why platforms like Linux equally adapt to the configs of a 486 as well as an 2100+.

 

[Peter]

Well for one, there are quite a few softmodems with Linux drivers now ... watch for chipset integrated
DSL soon. SiS and VIA are working on it.

Besides, there is help for those who want to keep their old peripherals. It's just that the tables are
turning, about time it is. Until recently, we had serial, parallel, kb, mouse onboard, but USB, Firewire
and other modern stuff to be added for extra money. Now we're slowly moving toward having plenty of
the modern ports onboard, and those who need the "old" ports can add them through cards.

Yes there are par/ser port PCI cards, as well as USB-parallel or USB-serial adapters.
That's the way it goes folks, and it's a necessary step to allow technology to move forward. It's not so
much about saving $1 on the mainboard - a legacy port SIO chip is WAY cheaper than FireWire, USB 2.0
or LAN.

regards, Peter

 

[DieHardware]

I'm all for moving forward, but a floppy drive and controller is still the cheapest way to boot to a DOS prompt. Peter how would you flash a K7S5A running Linux without a floppy drive?

 

[Peter]

Modern board BIOSes like in K7S5A support booting from all kinds of removable storage. USB ZIP, MO, Clik!, CDRW or ThumbDrive, ATAPI SuperDisk drive, MO, CDRW ... you name it.

Meself usually goes to the old SCSI MO drive for these things. If you're all desperate, make a bootable CDR or CDRW and do the BIOS update from there. (And if you do these things more frequently, then why not make a tiny little DOS partition on the HDD?)

regards, Peter

 

[DieHardware]

<< why not make a tiny little DOS partition on the HDD?) >>

Good idea, never thought of that...

 

[Peter]

... then again, how do you make a bootable DOS partition without using the DOS install disks?

Well I guess it's just down to the old rule ... if you want to listen to your old records,
you better take care of your old turntable ...

regards, Peter

 

[Jeff7]

<< I fully agree with Peter here. The PS/2 units are still part of the ISA bus. >>



They are? I've always been able to share IRQ 12 with other devices without problem. And the only USB device I have in the house is a cheapo digital camera. Keyboard and mouse are PS/2; printer and scanner are parallel.

I didn't ever think that PS/2 ate CPU clocks like that; I thought that was true of USB, which is one reason why heavy CPU use would cause USB speakers to skip.

 

[jaeger66]

<<

They are? >>


Yes.



<< I didn't ever think that PS/2 ate CPU clocks like that; I thought that was true of USB, which is one reason why heavy CPU use would cause USB speakers to skip. >>



Sheesh, what kind of CPUs are you guys running? Pentium Pros? The days of worrying about things on your mobo sucking your CPU cycles away are over.

 

[Peter]

CPU speed doesn't help here - during the flight time of register access from CPU to north bridge over chipset bus into the south bridge, over into the LPC or ISA super-IO chip and finally into the keyboard/mouse controller unit in there and back, the CPU has to twiddle its thumbs.

100 or 2000 MHz doesn't matter, the amount of real world time spent waiting for boringly slow old hardware is constant (and getting worse the further to the back these things move in the architecture). To get data to and fro the keyboard/mouse controller requires a lot of CPU accesses.

Sure, many USB devices aren't much more intelligent, but at least the USB controllers reside in the chipset southbridge and thus are reached through a fast bus - and they deliver data via bus master DMA, not CPU driven I/O cycles. That does make a difference. Just take a USB-PS/2 combo mouse and watch how much smoother the arrow moves when on USB - whether on a 75 MHz Pentium or a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4.

regards, Peter

 

[jaeger66]

<< CPU speed doesn't help here - during the flight time of register access from CPU to north bridge over chipset bus into the south bridge, over into the LPC or ISA super-IO chip and finally into the keyboard/mouse controller unit in there and back, the CPU has to twiddle its thumbs.
>>


Doesn't the write buffer created by delayed transactions eliminate that? That's what it's supposed to do.

 

[DieHardware]

<< watch how much smoother the arrow moves when on USB >>

Not to beat the dead horse but doesn't ps/2 offer a higher refresh rate than USB?...200 vs. 125, isn't it? I do agree that my Logitech optical mouse seems smoother through the USB connection than ps/2 however.

 

[Peter]

Jaeger, the Delayed Transactions mechanism frees up the chipset bus (PCI, V-Link, MuTIOL, HubLink, HyperTransport, you name it) for transactions from other bus masters while the south bridge and ISA stuff are working on a result from an I/O read - but the CPU still has to wait until this result comes in.

DieHardware, what refresh rate? Mice signal movements and klicks in data packets, these data packets trigger an interrupt, and it's the travel time of the data packet and interrupt that makes the movement smooth or jerky.

On USB, the packet is already in main RAM when the interrupt comes in, thanks to the USB controller's bus master work, so it's quick and smooth.

Serial and PS/2 just trigger the interrupt when data are incoming, and the CPU then must fetch the data through slow I/O operations. The outcome is that the latency between physical mouse movement and pointer action is noticeably longer.

Now consider how much time, in CPU cycles, a human "noticeable" is, and you'll see what I mean.

regards, Peter

 

[Zap]

<< A major reason I grabbed an Iwill KK266-R was for that 1 ISA slot (for a modem I still don't want to replace). >>


LOL, I have an internal USR Courier v.Everything modem that I'd be loathe to discard.