Which chipset offers the best pci bus speed for a wet dream pc?

[no0b]

I am thinking of constructing a computer with a rather large ATA-100 raid 0 (4-6 drives or maybe in raid 5) array. The array would use a Promise Supertrak SX6000 will there be a difference in performance if I use a 64MB stick of ram versuses a 128MB stick of ram? I have heard that the via chipsets pci bus could be a bottleneck in this system. I have also heard that Intel chipsets have the same pci bus bottleneck. So my question is there a problem with the AMD chipsets, Ali Magick (shuders), and sis's pci bus speeds? Or should I go with the brute force approach and get a dual athlon rig?
Thank you and note this wet dream machine will more than likely never see the light of day due to costs.
-tekk

 

[AndyHui]

In regard to Intel chipsets, the i850 is affected for PCI problems. The i845 does not have this problem.

Neither the ALi Magik1 nor SiS chipsets seem to exhibit PCI problems either. What's wrong with the ALi Magik1? As long as you have the latest c0 revision of the chipset, its performance is on par with the KT266A, but seemingly without the issues that are common on VIA chipsets.

The AMD760 chipset still uses a traditional PCI bus between the North and South Bridge, unlike the other chipsets which all use a dedicated high speed interconnect, so it's questionable if you will have enough bandwidth.

Even then, with up to 6 drives in a RAID5 array, you are going to saturate the 133MB/s that PCI offers, regardless of which chipset you go with.

 

[imgod2u]

Could you elaborate on this problem with the i850 as far as the PCI? I was planning on getting a mobo with it and I would like it to be as problem free as my CUSL2.

 

[Agent004]

Perhapse he should go for a motherboard with a 64 bit pci.

 

[Priit]

<< Could you elaborate on this problem with the i850 as far as the PCI? I was planning on getting a mobo with it and I would like it to be as problem free as my CUSL2. >>



There was Intel's official report about bug (they call it "errata") in i850 and i860 chipsets that limits the PCI bandwidth to about 80Mb/s max (if I remember right).

 

[samgau]

You might want to look into a serverworks board..... with 64bit 66 Mhz pci slots... these boards have more than one PCI bus... the ones I use have 2 independent PCI buses... also the N-force chipset has the new V-bus (or something like that) bus as do the new chipsets for the athlon MPs....

Just look up all the boards that have 64bit pci slots... you can be sure that they have better buses than regular motherboards...

 

[no0b]

Okay I would go with a dual cpu mobo because of the 64bit pci bus. My next question is is the PROMISE FASTTRAK100 TX4 RAID acheive raid by software or hardware. It appears to have an intel coprossessor on it but I cant tell if thats what it really is.

 

[AndyHui]

Hardware.

If you have to add an additional controller card, this constitutes as hardware.

Software RAID is completely controlled by the operating system.

 

[no0b]

but dont some of the el cheapo cards use the cpu for making the stripes and the high quality use a coproccessor for the stripe and does the PROMISE FASTTRAK100 TX4 RAID have the cocpu

 

[AluminumStudios]

I usually refer to the cheap IDE RAID cards asd "firmware" raid. They use the system CPU to do that RAID calculations. THat is why there is no el-cheapo RAID 5 IDE. The parity calculations for RAID 5 would bog the CPU down too much. Any RAID card that offers RAID 5 to me knowledge is a true hardware raid.

 

[no0b]

ahhhhhhhhhh me drewls
(1)TYAN Tiger MP (S2460) K7 AMD 760MP 200/ 266 MHz FSB DDR DUAL PGA462 SYSTEM for Althon MP ATX MOTHERBOARD - RETAIL
(1) PROMISE FASTTRAK100 TX4 RAID CONTROLLER CARD - RETAIL (i would go with the sx6000 if someone will tell me that this card is firmware based)
(2) AMD 1700+/266 FSB Athlon XP PROCESSOR CPU - RETAIL (I would like to have the MP version)
(2) CRUCIAL MICRON 256MB 32x72 PC 2100 DDR RAM - OEM ECC
(3) MAXTOR EIDE HARD DRIVE MODEL # 6L040J2 40GB 7200RPM - OEM, DRIVE ONLY (i have the last 1 to make the total 4)

for 1 grand even at newegg without shipping

 

[joesixpack64]

<< Could you elaborate on this problem with the i850 as far as the PCI? I was planning on getting a mobo with it and I would like it to be as problem free as my CUSL2. >>



Problem: During a memory read multiple operation, a PCI master will read more than one complete cache line from memory. In this situation, the MCH pre-fetches information from memory in order to provide optimal performance. However, the MCH cannot provide information to the PCI master fast enough. Therefore, the Intel 82801BA terminates the read cycle early to free up the PCI bus for other PCI masters to claim.

Implication: The early termination limits the maximum bandwidth to ~90 MB/s.
Workaround: none
Status: There are no plans to fix this erratum.

I found this from the Intel website: page 11 ftp://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/specupdt/29824704.pdf

Is this what you're looking for?
How would this affect the operation of PCI cards on such a system? I bought a Creative Audigy Platinum card, but I haven't bought a mobo, cpu, memory yet. I am trying to avoid the Audigy squeal of death. I noticed that a lot of the people with problems use the via or i850 chipsets.