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I, like many of the people who post here, am looking to build a new system. At present Im looking for to the eminent release of the MSI Diamond Plus board [http://www.msi.com.tw/program/newsrelease/news_page.php?UID=444]. I want a system that will last me (for gaming purposes) for 2 to 3 years. I hope to throw in a fx-60 chip and a 512meg 7800 gtx. That being said, this board has evolved from previous designs and has a couple of built in features that Im trying to make sense of.
I need someone to point of the problem with my facts, logic or math.
This board has SATA II. How many variants are there for SATA II? I see some board toting 300 megabytes/sec and others claiming 3 gigabits/sec. Now, I dont do a lot of binary math but 300 megabytes/sec does not equal 3 gigabits/sec, does it? Set aside the fact that these two numbers seem to be interchangeable why would I need either? If the latest Western Digital SATA II (300 megabytes/sec) harddrive [WD2500KS] has an internal transfer rate of just over 90 megabytes/sec (in theory), why have it hooked to a cable that can do 300 megabytes/sec (in theory)? I might get that first 16 megs of data, from the cache, at 300 megabytes/sec but the remain data Im trying to read will dribble down at 90 megabytes/sec (best case). Besides the fact that theyre not being made any more why not stick with one drive on a PATA Ultra 100 cable?
Second, this mother board has a Creative sound chip on it. Im not that sensitive to sound, but I believe that Creative makes good sound cards, all be it over priced. Having gone through several sound blaster cards in the last 10 years, they are large, bulky cards. Even the current crop of sound blasters are beefy for a PCI card. On this board you get a one inch square chip. I doubt they were able to shrink a two year old card down to one chip. So whats missing. Quality? Fidelity? Im sure Creative has lost a lot of business with mother board makers slapping on cheap sound chips, and Creative wants to get into the action, but is this Creative chip a better alternative or will I still need to get a stand alone Creative sound card if I want quality and fidelity?
Next, this boards chipset supports SLI PCI-E X16 (on both slots at same time). Just before I was going to type this up I was going to ask why, when no card can do 8X, but I just read how NVidia has shown a dual PCB card. So fine, I can see the usefulness of a 16X slot. My question is: Do you still need an SLI bridge jumper thingie on a board that supports NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16?
Lastly, Im currently using an old 32-bit AMD 2500 system. When I bought it I had hoped to, when needed, upgrade it to a 3200 or better. It seemed like then next day AMD announced 64-bit 939 and 32-bit died a quick death. The only place I find a 3200 is E-Bay. So, with the AMD-M2 socket on the horizon, how fast will 939 die? I cant find much on the road path for AMD. If the FX-60 is one of the last chips AMD makes for 939 should I just keep waiting and get a low end M2 chip knowing I should be able to upgrade for several years? Does anyone know what kind of features we can expect from an M2 motherboard? DDR2, but at what speed? Anything else?
Thanks for any enlightenment you can provide!
I need someone to point of the problem with my facts, logic or math.
This board has SATA II. How many variants are there for SATA II? I see some board toting 300 megabytes/sec and others claiming 3 gigabits/sec. Now, I dont do a lot of binary math but 300 megabytes/sec does not equal 3 gigabits/sec, does it? Set aside the fact that these two numbers seem to be interchangeable why would I need either? If the latest Western Digital SATA II (300 megabytes/sec) harddrive [WD2500KS] has an internal transfer rate of just over 90 megabytes/sec (in theory), why have it hooked to a cable that can do 300 megabytes/sec (in theory)? I might get that first 16 megs of data, from the cache, at 300 megabytes/sec but the remain data Im trying to read will dribble down at 90 megabytes/sec (best case). Besides the fact that theyre not being made any more why not stick with one drive on a PATA Ultra 100 cable?
Second, this mother board has a Creative sound chip on it. Im not that sensitive to sound, but I believe that Creative makes good sound cards, all be it over priced. Having gone through several sound blaster cards in the last 10 years, they are large, bulky cards. Even the current crop of sound blasters are beefy for a PCI card. On this board you get a one inch square chip. I doubt they were able to shrink a two year old card down to one chip. So whats missing. Quality? Fidelity? Im sure Creative has lost a lot of business with mother board makers slapping on cheap sound chips, and Creative wants to get into the action, but is this Creative chip a better alternative or will I still need to get a stand alone Creative sound card if I want quality and fidelity?
Next, this boards chipset supports SLI PCI-E X16 (on both slots at same time). Just before I was going to type this up I was going to ask why, when no card can do 8X, but I just read how NVidia has shown a dual PCB card. So fine, I can see the usefulness of a 16X slot. My question is: Do you still need an SLI bridge jumper thingie on a board that supports NVIDIA nForce4 SLI X16?
Lastly, Im currently using an old 32-bit AMD 2500 system. When I bought it I had hoped to, when needed, upgrade it to a 3200 or better. It seemed like then next day AMD announced 64-bit 939 and 32-bit died a quick death. The only place I find a 3200 is E-Bay. So, with the AMD-M2 socket on the horizon, how fast will 939 die? I cant find much on the road path for AMD. If the FX-60 is one of the last chips AMD makes for 939 should I just keep waiting and get a low end M2 chip knowing I should be able to upgrade for several years? Does anyone know what kind of features we can expect from an M2 motherboard? DDR2, but at what speed? Anything else?
Thanks for any enlightenment you can provide!