Need help choosing C2D mobo.

[gvblake22]

aahh, ok, now I see your concern with the single PATA IDE port...
With a PATA hard drive, that is a legitimate concern (unless all your optical drives are SATA, but I doubt that). In that case, you might be better off with an Intel 975X or nVidia nForce 600 series based motherboard to give you the extra PATA IDE port as the DS3 only has one PATA IDE connector. Otherwise you would have to either find a 965 based board with two IDE ports or be stuck putting your optical drive and HDD on the same channel (which will hinder performance when both are transferring data).

[screwballl]

After using the DS3 for 24 hours now it is a great board, plenty of options and plenty of connectors (but only 1 port for 2 PATA devices). This one has 6 SATA ports, onboard RAID if desired, 1 PATA and 1 floppy drive... plus 3 USB connectoids along the bottom of the board

[K3Fallout]

Yeah. The P5W is the only one that has more than one pata connector. How much of a decrease if I do share a hard drive and optical drive on one connector?

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by K3Fallout

Yeah. The P5W is the only one that has more than one pata connector. How much of a decrease if I do share a hard drive and optical drive on one connector?

YA know, that's actually a very good question and I wish I had a good answer! I really don't know what kind of a performance hit you will take, but I would suspect that if you were using both drives very heavily at the same time (like installing software or a game or something from the optical drive to the hard drive) then it will probably be quite a bit. But these performance hits should only really exist if both drives are transferring data at the same time.

My SWAG (Scientific Wild @$$ Guess) would be that the hard drive transfer rates would slow down to whatever the optical drive was doing (the weakest link), which is pretty darn slow.

You could either limit yourself to getting a board with two PATA IDE connections, get a PCI add-on card that gives you additional PATA connections, get a PATA to SATA adapter, or replace your hard drive with a SATA model. I would suggest the first or last option...

P965 based boards with two PATA connections:
EPoX EP-5P965+GLI

975X based boards with two PATA connections:
MSI 975X Platinum V.2
ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI-AP
Foxconn 975X7AB-8EKRS2H

nForce 650i SLI based boards with two PATA connections:
MSI P6N SLI-FI
MSI P6N SLI Platinum
ASUS P5N-E SLI

[K3Fallout]

Jeez, I really didn't think that this hard drive would hold me back. Looks like I'll have to spend another 80 or so for another hard drive. Either that or just get the P5W. It's still not a definite shot I'll get it until I find out the price.. what are your guesses how much will it cost at whole sale price when it's about 207$?

[Cyberlon]

The $12 you spend on a PCI IDE controller for your PATA HDD is worth it compared to the performance hit you will take when attaching it to a cable also controlling your optical drive.

A hard drive uses an 80 conductor, 40 pin cable... but your optical drive only requires a 40 conductor, 40 pin cable. Hard drives are so much faster than optical drives that the older cables like what your optical drive uses, would create a phenomenon known as crosstalk. These better 80 conductor cables were created to absorb that crosstalk (which in essence is corruption of data transfers) by adding an extra ground in between each data channel. (of which there are still 40)

- Does that make sense and help?

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by K3Fallout

Jeez, I really didn't think that this hard drive would hold me back.

Unfortunately the industry is quickly moving away from PATA. Even a lot of AM2 boards only have one PATA connection. :dontknow:

Originally Posted by K3Fallout

what are your guesses how much will it cost at whole sale price when it's about 207$?

Again, I really have no idea, sorry...

[K3Fallout]

Darn. Well, I guess there's really not much good options. I guess I'll have to ask my brother's friend sometime soon. Hmm. I'm really not sure what else to ask now. Umm.. good brands for optical drives? EDIT: Cyberlon, I have no idea what you just said. You have to dumb it down a bit :P

[screwballl]

the only time there should be any slowdown when using the hard drive and CD Drive on the same PATA lane is if you are copying directly from CD to HD (or possibly loading a game that requires a disc in the drive, then there may be a temporary slowdown but not really noticeable). Otherwise it will work just as fast as it would if it were the only drive on that lane. Typically it is best to set the HD as Master and the CD as Slave.

When yuo can get a 250GB SATA hd for around $100, might as well step up and spend a few extra $$$

[K3Fallout]

Well, right now there's a sale on a Seagate 160gb SATA and after rebates and all that, It's 50 bucks. Perhaps I should jump on that?