You are right, I remember the good times of Soyo. Out of nostalgia I guess, I completely overhauled a 10-year old Powermac recently. It is now running all the latest software like a champ and I like it so much. It is getting more usage than my quad core PC lately. See the third machine in my sig.
I just want to give ECS mad props for dropping IDE. Some people will complain, but I say, the less legacy stuff to clutter my board the better. No IDE, no PS2 on the IO = Love...
I just want to give ECS mad props for dropping IDE. Some people will complain, but I say, the less legacy stuff to clutter my board the better. No IDE, no PS2 on the IO = Love...
I just want to give ECS mad props for dropping IDE. Some people will complain, but I say, the less legacy stuff to clutter my board the better. No IDE, no PS2 on the IO = Love...
Bah I say. I won't buy a board without at least 1 IDE channel until my DVD and DVDRW drives both break. There's no reason to get a SATA optical drive unless you don't already have a working optical drive. Fact of the matter is DVD/CD drives don't even use the full IDE/133 bus. As for PCI slots, I've got PCI WiFi/NICs laying around and I'd like to be able to use them if need be.
You all may be in a big rush to get rid of everything legacy, but some of us have hardware that requires the legacy bits to be there.
I have not used serial/parallel and PS/2 ports since maybe several years. I have recently disabled the addon IDE on my PC as well (yay for 2 seconds faster boot). But I still need at least one PCI port especially for the WiFi cards.
I still have working PS/2 keyboards laying around.... parallel is pretty much useless, serial is still useful for servers in some cases, but generally not for desktops. That said, serial and parallel ports have been around and have been "obsolete" a lot longer than IDE, PCI and PS/2.
All I want on my IO is USB 2.0 / 3.0 and External SATA, and my audio connections, and a DVI port if onboard video is included. Kill fire wire, kill 15 pin VGA ports, get rid of the IDE channel, PS/2 ports, serial, parallel, and legacy PCI can beat it too.
Its a little thing I like to call progress.
I guarantee you there was a marketing meeting at ECS, and a bunch of guys sat around debating the removal of IDE as a small cost cutting measure for hours, and you probably had a guy in the room that went on and on about the Tim's of the world, oh how it will pain them to spend the $17.95 on newegg for a new DVD ROM Drive, and then, common sense prevailed. SATA is better, and has been for about a decade now. I congratulate ECS for being bold enough to drop legacy support.
I know its a seems like a silly thing to point out, but I really think the board looks cleaner without the IDE interface taking up room for legacy peripherals that nobody should be plugging into a board this sexy to begin with.
So... your argument is that SATA is somehow viscerally better and that the board "looks cleaner".
Sure, SATA is better for things that can actually utilize the extra bandwidth, like hard drives.... but there is no difference between the speed of an IDE DVD-ROM drive and a SATA DVD-ROM drive. The limitation isn't the connection, it's the speed that you can rotate a disk at before it shatters. The difference between the Tims of the world, and this is that the Tims of the world refuse to upgrade no matter what. This is a case where upgrading is unnecessary because doing so actually offers no benefit whatsoever. A SATA DVD drive will not outperform an IDE DVD drive because the interface is not the bottleneck. If I can save 40 bucks while upgrading by not replacing 2 parts that don't, realistically, need to be replaced... guess what? I'm going to save that money.
Oh yeah, and going back to serial ports.... there's a damn good reason to still have them that I just remembered. Some equipment (especially enterprise level routers and switches) require a null serial connection to configure them.
You can get a PCI card for almost any legacy port. I would rather have a cheaper better performing board than cram generations of ports on an I/O pannel just because.
It is thrilling to know that I can still stir the pot!
Seriously though, I would wage a war against legacy support if I could. I just think its technology, a huge part of tech is eventual obsolescence. I embrace that concept for the sake of progress.
We also did not mention that without the legacy ports, supporting chips, and BIOS complications, the motherboards will be cheaper. See, Ardichoke's DVD drive might cost even less
We also did not mention that without the legacy ports, supporting chips, and BIOS complications, the motherboards will be cheaper. See, Ardichoke's DVD drive might cost even less
The great thing about legacy parts are that they're cheap to manufacture. I'd wager that they contribute no significant cost to the manufacture of each board.
Hell... if they were really that bad more manufacturers would get rid of them. Supply and demand right? If most manufacturers are still including them, there must be a market for them and it must not be hurting their bottom line.
Yea, I'm sure tons of money was made on the acr / cnr / amr slots when they were around what with all the demand.:rolleyes2
ANY additional port / slot / feature on a MB costs the manufacturer, hence the consumer. Its no different then putting toys in a happy meal; useless junk to entice the consumer.
I was more than willing to pay $40 to ditch IDE in exchange for cleaner wiring, better airflow and a less cluttered motherboard. Tech moves on, and so do I.
A well rounded set of IDE cables aren't much larger and no less messy looking than SATA cables. Plus the one I has is UV reactive! Oh, and since I have 2 optical drives, I only need to run 1 IDE cable as opposed to 2 SATA cables if I had 2 SATA drives. 1 cable makes less of a rats nest than 2
Tech moves on, so do I, when it's warranted. There's a number of reasons that it's not in this case. Sure, when the drives finally die, I'll replace them with SATA drives... but there's not enough justification to replace a fully functional DVD drive just so I can change cables. Especially when a board with an IDE port is no more costly than one without.
mertesn
I am Bobby MillerYukon, OK Icrontian
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Bah I say. I won't buy a board without at least 1 IDE channel until my DVD and DVDRW drives both break. There's no reason to get a SATA optical drive unless you don't already have a working optical drive. Fact of the matter is DVD/CD drives don't even use the full IDE/133 bus. As for PCI slots, I've got PCI WiFi/NICs laying around and I'd like to be able to use them if need be.
You all may be in a big rush to get rid of everything legacy, but some of us have hardware that requires the legacy bits to be there.
inb4 I get called tim.
Its a little thing I like to call progress.
I guarantee you there was a marketing meeting at ECS, and a bunch of guys sat around debating the removal of IDE as a small cost cutting measure for hours, and you probably had a guy in the room that went on and on about the Tim's of the world, oh how it will pain them to spend the $17.95 on newegg for a new DVD ROM Drive, and then, common sense prevailed. SATA is better, and has been for about a decade now. I congratulate ECS for being bold enough to drop legacy support.
I know its a seems like a silly thing to point out, but I really think the board looks cleaner without the IDE interface taking up room for legacy peripherals that nobody should be plugging into a board this sexy to begin with.
Sure, SATA is better for things that can actually utilize the extra bandwidth, like hard drives.... but there is no difference between the speed of an IDE DVD-ROM drive and a SATA DVD-ROM drive. The limitation isn't the connection, it's the speed that you can rotate a disk at before it shatters. The difference between the Tims of the world, and this is that the Tims of the world refuse to upgrade no matter what. This is a case where upgrading is unnecessary because doing so actually offers no benefit whatsoever. A SATA DVD drive will not outperform an IDE DVD drive because the interface is not the bottleneck. If I can save 40 bucks while upgrading by not replacing 2 parts that don't, realistically, need to be replaced... guess what? I'm going to save that money.
Oh yeah, and going back to serial ports.... there's a damn good reason to still have them that I just remembered. Some equipment (especially enterprise level routers and switches) require a null serial connection to configure them.
If you need to use legacy parts use a hybrid board.
Oh yea, ps2 and serial/parallel ports should have been dropped YEARS ago IMHO.
This^
Seriously though, I would wage a war against legacy support if I could. I just think its technology, a huge part of tech is eventual obsolescence. I embrace that concept for the sake of progress.
QFT. Smart simple design FTW.
Hell... if they were really that bad more manufacturers would get rid of them. Supply and demand right? If most manufacturers are still including them, there must be a market for them and it must not be hurting their bottom line.
ANY additional port / slot / feature on a MB costs the manufacturer, hence the consumer. Its no different then putting toys in a happy meal; useless junk to entice the consumer.
Do we know anyone else like this?
Tech moves on, so do I, when it's warranted. There's a number of reasons that it's not in this case. Sure, when the drives finally die, I'll replace them with SATA drives... but there's not enough justification to replace a fully functional DVD drive just so I can change cables. Especially when a board with an IDE port is no more costly than one without.
I use Blu-Ray drives for two of my four systems (one reader, one writer). The others are using DVD drives.
When Blu-Ray becomes a little more reasonable, I'll move over.
Until then......