MotherBoard queries

sweavesweave boston
edited May 2007 in Hardware
just a few questions on motherboards


1) if a motherboard has sata connectors, then why do the specifications not list sata as being compatible harddrives?
for one example (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=3079376&sku=B52-2004)
Hard Drive Types: UDMA/33
UDMA/133
UDMA/100
UDMA/66
i have a seagate 320gb sata 300 16mb and was wondering about this little quirk?
is the listing just for people using pata/ide harddrives?

2) on the ide header on a motherboard can any ide device be connected to it or is it only for the harddrives?
i have a 18x burner connected to my current machine that i wanted to migrate to the new one but it is ide.

3) are pcie-x1 or x4 or x8 slots important at all?
im planning on getting a 16x vid card (just one) and was wondering about what other types of cards require the pcie slots as opposed to regular pci?
in addition to the video card i was planning on getting a sound card, maybe a network card (if not built in), and when it starts showing some usefulness a phys-x card as well.

that's all for now
thanks in advance :)

Comments

  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2007
    1) Yes, the listing is just for people with PATA drives.
    2) IDE is IDE. If you can plug it in (Burner, ROM, drive..) it'll work.
    3) X8 slots aren't really important for a desktop, but X1 and x4 may be important in the future for replacing PCI; this was the goal, but it really hasn't happened yet, and won't for a while.
  • HawkHawk Fla Icrontian
    edited May 2007
    #1
    Yes, It has SATA II capabilities. There are 4 SATA plugs on this mobo.
    B52-2004-out7-hl.jpg
    Serial ATA RAID Support
    The nForce 680i LT SLI supports the Serial ATA II technology through the Serial ATA interfaces. Doubles bus bandwidth which provides blazingly high disk performance, up to 3.0Gb/s, with RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, RAID 5, and JBOD solutions.

    #2
    There's only 1 IDE slot on this mobo, (Blue plug) so I would assume they expect you to use SATA hard drives or and IDE for your CD/DVD players.
    You can use an IDE belt that has 2 plugs on it. One plug is jumpered on the middle of the belt. That way you can have 2 players/burners etc.
    The nForce 680i LT SLI includes built in IDE facilities that support Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133. Which means it's backward compatible with older slower hard drives or cd/dvd players.
    B52-2004-out6-hl.jpg

    #3
    PCI-E is for your graphics card. Which must be a PCIE graphics card.
    There are 2 PCIE slots for 2 graphics cards if and when you want to use 2 cards.
    B52-2004-out10-hl.jpgB52-2004-out11-hl.jpg

    It has good on board sound.. so you wouldn't need to add a sound card.
    Audio
    The nForce 680i LT SLI comes with a High Definition Audio (HDA) audio codec which supports high quality 8-channel audio.
    B52-2004-out9-hl.jpg

    Last.. You have on board Gigabit LAN, So you don't need a network card.
    It's all built into the mobo.
    Hope this helps you out.
  • sweavesweave boston
    edited May 2007
    thanks Hawk and Thrax :)
    3) X8 slots aren't really important for a desktop, but X1 and x4 may be important in the future for replacing PCI; this was the goal, but it really hasn't happened yet, and won't for a while.

    interesting. so the plan in the future is to have all sound cards, network cards and so on and so forth using the 1/4x slots?
    i recently read about a 32x coming out sometime later on as well.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited May 2007
    The only PCIe add on card that I can recall seeing was a drive controller.
    There really isn't much call these days for add in network or sound cards unless you are building an entertainment system.
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