Which Canterwood? SATA RAID w.adapter??

First off, I am deffinately getting a 875P motherboard, though I am constantly going back and forth trying to decide between two boards:

Asus P4C800 Deluxe
or
MSI 875P NEO-FIS2R

The asus appeals to me with the AI overclocking, but I probably will end up overclocking manually anyway.

The MSI looks good with the 4 SATA ports instead of the two thats on the asus, and I was checking out the manual....with a 533 bus CPU the RAM can be set to 354mhz instead of a max of 333mhz that the asus is capable of. I do want to get the most out of my PC-3200 DDR RAM.

Do you think the 354 would be that much of an improvement over 333?

also I want to do IDE RAID w.2 WD 120GB SE HDs, will I be able to do this with a paralell to SATA adapter on the intel SATA or do I need a two SATA drives?


The MSI looks good....but so doesn't the asus....I am not considering Abit since it doesn't have a onboard promise controller,I will need that for my other hard drives.


current situation:

P4 2.533ghz (maxes out at 2.869ghz @ default voltage, 151 FSB)
Gigabyte 8PE667 Ultra
1GB PC-3200 DDR (2, 512MB Geil)
48X CD-RW TDK
16X Lite on DVD
120GB SE HD

I'd take Asus or MSI any day of the week. MSI has a bad habit of listing BIOS options the board will never support. Like, say, a 354MHz memory speed when the fastest on the market is just over 200. You'll hit the wall with your Geil-or any DDR400-well before you come up against a 333 or 354 BIOS limit.

Asus also has a much better reputation for quality.

You can run the WD 1200JB drives through S-ATA adapters, but your performance will be no better than running through one of the ATA100 ports. You can also run the two Caviar drives through the S-ATA ports for a RAID array and add more hard drives through the ATA100 ports. The point I'm trying to make is that the difference between a board having two and four S-ATA ports isn't a big deal at all.

I also noticed you said you didn't want an Abit board because they don't use an onboard Promise controller. FWIW, the make of RAID and drive controller is really irrelevent. Promise and Highpoint controllers work equally well. (There is also a third brand that came up with S-ATA last fall, but the name escapes me at the moment.)

If I can offer a suggestion: Your current rig is really strong. In the next month you'll see more 875 boards and the first 865 models. If you can wait a month to six weeks, you'll have more boards to choose from and a better idea on how they actually perform.




BHD

Silicon Image is the third company your thinking of, and personally
I prefer Highpoint above all because they update their BIOS
and Drivers more regularly, and have better BIOS to begin with.

But that's just me.

decision made

I read a few reviews on the MSI NEO FIS2R and decided there is no question I want the MSI. I found out the Asus doesn't use the ICH5R but the ICH5 which must rely on the promise controller to do the SATA RAID not the intel chipset which I understand is slower. (promise is slower)

the local PC shop told me i have to wait a couple days though...they get pricing, but no board. The Abit IC7-G is coming tommorrow....I'd get that if it had a third IDE port. I guess Abit dropped using highpoints. But the SATA adapter they include is nice. I already ordered my 2 Soyo adapters anyway.

I've been waiting over 1 month for a board for my second 2.533ghz, I figure the MSI would be the only one worth the wait. with the lights on the fan on the northbridge, and the 4 SATA RAID ports, with the posibility of running my RAM @ 354 instead of 333. especially if I can clock the CPU to 151 FSB, that would make the RAM run @ 390 I figure instead of 368 which is close enough to 400 for me.

BaldHeadedDork said:

... Like, say, a 354MHz memory speed when the fastest on the market is just over 200. You'll hit the wall with your Geil-or any DDR400-well before you come up against a 333 or 354 BIOS limit....

Click to expand...

ummm... what he's talking about DDR speeds not raw MHz rating which would be DDR666 and DDR708

with the MSI mobo it has ratios where when you run a 533FSB proc you can get DC DDR354 speeds

and yes it's always good to run the mem higher than the bus because in all benches I've seen the bandwidth pulls down as if it was the next step down in RAM
ie:in single channel PC3200 pulls like ~2700-2800MB sec, PC3500 pulls 3100-3200MB/sec

Re: decision made

DB11574 said:

I read a few reviews on the MSI NEO FIS2R and decided there is no question I want the MSI

Click to expand...

good choice.. have one on order as well

another F**up that ASUS did was not using CSA for the gigaLAN they just hooked it through the SB so they're trying to have you run SATA, gigaLAN AND whatever PCI devices through only a 266MB/sec pipeline

MSI all the way