Whats so different between the 955X vs the 975x?

I have a P5WD2 E Premium now and I don't see anything different other than a few CMOS changes.

Are there any performance enhancement? I don't see anything.

If anything, I can't get rid of windows "auto detecting PCI device" everytime I boot the system.

I thought 975 was a mobile chipset ?

There's not a ton different between the 2 chipsets which is why a lot of 955 owners aren't spending the $220+ for a new board, especially if they'll need to do it again in 4-5 months for Conroe. IMHO, the only real benefit of the -E over the Prem is that the 2nd PCIe slot gives 8x+8x (Prem is only 4x), which is beneficial if you have Crossfire and the 975X chipset supports the 955XE Presler/VT. Other than that, I remember seeing a comparo between the 955/975 boards and the 975 was better only by a *very slight* margin...for all intents and purposes, the results were the same.

If I was going to spend any kind of $$ on a 975 board, it would be the Gigabyte just for the 8-phase power I wouldn't spend the $300+ on the WS in any case, but it doesn't look to be as good an OCers as the -E or Prem to begin with.

I don't know what device it's looking for on boot, but if you have no drives connected to the red IDE ports, you should be able to turn off the ITE controller in BIOS....assuming they still use that chip for those ports.

I also get that 'new pci device' BS everytime XP starts.

The P5WD2-E doesn't use the ITE controller. Instead a Marvell 6141 controller for RAID\eSATA\Internal SATA is used, which I still cannot get XP to detect right.

That explains that. No one can get them working apparently. I was looking at them when I was ordering my Presler last night and every single review on Egg complains that the Marvell controller barely works/does not work AT ALL. If you're not using anything on it and it doesn't work anyway (ie. all SATAs on the Southbridge SATA ports), you might as well kill it in BIOS...could be causing other conflicts/issues.

Personally, I'd RMA that thing for a refund in a heartbeat for $230 and a major component doesn't work. Have you guys checked for any chipset/controller updates to see if it's a driver problem maybe?

I had the mystery PCI device also and loaded new drivers from the ASUS site... Fixed it

Guys, would I notice a big difference upgrading to the "E" with my upcoming Crossfire setup??? Or should I just stick with my 955?

Talk to RangerXLT. I didn't think it was going to make much of a diff either, but he said he got like 1000 more marks in 3D benches...

Ross said:

Talk to RangerXLT. I didn't think it was going to make much of a diff either, but he said he got like 1000 more marks in 3D benches...

Click to expand...

HMMM... Makes it tough to call. I'll be upgrading to Conroe, so I might just wait...

Yeah, the gain is just because the 2nd PCIe slot is 8x instead of 4x. I'd just wait too, but sometimes it's hard I am absoultely done buying anything "fun" until Conroe comes out. I'll keep my eye out for Corsair 8000ULs to get back in stock somewhere and maybe finally get rid of my last IDE HDD for a SATA, but no more mobos or procs (AFTER my new 930 gets here tomorrow, LOL).

Honestly, for me I didn't see any specific gains.

But that stupid PCI autodetect thing keeps popping up- I'm going to try downloading new drivers tonight to see if it goes away, very annoying.

(off topic alert)

I'm running my Promise S150 SATA Raid controller card. Bypasses the entire issue.

Ross has read my threads before - you can't trust onboard RAID 1. I lost a lot of data cause of this crap.


Now the reason I went with the -E over standard is I plan on buying the a good PCI-E SATA 8-port raid card. Here's a thread on the matter (so I can get above the 133MB/s limitation of the PCI bus, including the onboard raid 0):

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=427487

The Promise SATA PCI-E Raid card requires a 4x bus, which the non -E version would work with.

But I may go with the Areca ARC-1230 12 port instead which is PCI-E 8x (and so is the 1220 8-port card, it's 8x as well). It's twice the money as the Promise 8 port, but it's a 12 port card and has the ability for up to 1 GB of Cache!! Dear god.


This is the base of my new Vista MCE machine I am building. 2.2 Terabytes of storage, converting my DVDs, and selling them to make up for the costs (before the HD DVDs come out soon).

I don't know what's up with ASUS and HDDs/RAID since the 955 boards, but they stink Just get a couple of Buffalo TeraStations and be done with it

Ross said:

I don't know what's up with ASUS and HDDs/RAID since the 955 boards, but they stink Just get a couple of Buffalo TeraStations and be done with it

Click to expand...

Don't think so.

They are 4x250 GB HDDs, that's only 1 TB in RAID 0. Not to mention the current price of ~$650 for each.

So to match my planned 2.2 TB, you'll need to spend $1300 for two Terastations with a slow bus of USB 2.0/Firewire. Slow, as in the PCI bus that the USB goes through is only 133MB/s. The single reason of why I am moving to PCI-E for my data throughput.

Me?

8 * 300 GB SATA @ $99 = $800
+ $250 for Promise SATA PCI Express controller
= $1050

And ~2.1 terabytes secured in RAID5 as a major bonus. Not to mention the data throughput from this monster.

Already got the MCE case picked out.

http://www.silverstone-usa.com/products-lc18.htm

NOTE: Yes, the LC18 only holds 5 HDDs. But the HDD cage is swapable with the LC17, and tech support said they'll swap it during the order. No charge. That gives you 6 HDD places. I'm sure secure two of them to the case is no problem.

But I'll only be starting with 4 HDDs for now for 900 GB in RAID5.

Yeah, the price is ridiculous and it's far from the best option, especially if you want/need 3x the capacity

I'm running a PCI_E 4x controller now and it's FASTT.

I only bought it though because the 975X secondary RAID does not work. It's not a fancy one with onboard memory, it's a Highpoint RocketRaid 2310.

Ross, I was speaking with Gautam regarding my switch to Intel (Conroe DTR) (I don't have a computer ATM) and he highly recommended ASUS over DFI. What are your thoughts? I'll be waiting till the DTR version of Conroe comes out. If the DTR supposed to be the same socket, a simple BIOS fix ought to do it, right? Also, do you think the NVIDIA chipset has caught up with Intel?