Any motherboards supporting x2, crossfire and 8 rear usb ports?

[Boe]

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a good
motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports and
preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front and 4
rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've seen so
far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and I
can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping when the
AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the price for the
939 4800.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a
good motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports
and preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front
and 4 rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've
seen so far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Thanks

I was going to get AM2 but since there is no real performance gain, and I
can get the memory for the 939 at nearly half the price, I'm hoping when
the AM2 is realeased, the new socket and the 5000 might drop the price for
the 939 4800.

The big advantage for AM2 won't be performance, it will be the ability to
support more than 4G of RAM. I don't think you'll ever see unbuffered DDR
DIMMs bigger than 1G, but there is at least one 2G DDR2 DIMM already on
the market.

 

[Boe]

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure the
next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it with 2gb to
begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will support 4 GB - I
would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it will be at least 2
years from now and it will give me a good excuse to build a new system

 

[Wes Newell]

I'm thinking about building a new system in about 1 month. I'd like a good
motherboard that can support x2 939, crossfire, has 8 rear usb ports and
preferably has 2 gigabit nics on board. I see many that have 4 front and 4
rear usb but I'd like one with 8 usb rear and the only systems I've seen so
far with that are SLI not crossfire boards.

Where you physically mount the spare USB ports from the headers on the
board is up to you. If you want them in the rear, get a 4 port slot card
like the one below and put them there.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BSHNLK/ref=nosim/103-8132566-6472620?n=172282

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure the
next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it with 2gb
to begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will support 4
GB - I would imagine by the time I'm ready to go to 8GB, it will be at
least 2 years from now and it will give me a good excuse to build a new

The 939 pin A64s do support 4G, I have 4G on my MSI K8N Neo4/X2 4400+
system. So if you don't think you'll ever need 8G you can feel safe about
buying a current generation motherboard. The Nforce4 has been the dominant
chipset for the A64s which is why you see a lot of SLI boards. I assume
you are a Windoze user with no interest in Linux. If you do want to be
able to run Linux you should stay away from ATI and stick with Nvidia. ATI
does support Linux more or less but they don't do nearly as good a job of
it as Nvidia.

 

[Boe]

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run just
about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go into admin
mode to make something work. I do have an interest in Linux, FreeBFD,
and OSX since MS would never put new features into their products unless
they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far with the OSX
appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really prefered the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I like
FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either so if
nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the 7900 in the
next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat - particularly if it could do
it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I went SLI. By the time the new
600 from ATI comes out I would expect nVidia to have something good as well
and after the tests are in I'll get something. Until them I'll just use my
crappy spare PCIE 7800. I hate to buy a 1900 for $500 only to want to
replace it 5 months later.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

Yeah - I'm one of those crazy people using Windows since I want to run
just about every program and not have to LS or grep for stuff or go into
admin mode to make something work. I do have an interest in Linux,
FreeBFD, and OSX since MS would never put new features into their products
unless they had a good reference point. I think they've gone to far with
the OSX appearance though - I'd buy a f$@!!ng Mac if I really prefered the
interface.

Seriously though I use my PC for gaming as much as for work and since I
like FEAR so much I'm leaning towards ATI. I'm not a fanboy of either so
if nVidia comes out with something that doubles the speed of the 7900 in
the next month I'd jump to nVidia in a heartbeat - particularly if it
could do it and quadruple the speed of the 7900 if I went SLI. By the
time the new 600 from ATI comes out I would expect nVidia to have
something good as well and after the tests are in I'll get something.
Until them I'll just use my crappy spare PCIE 7800. I hate to buy a 1900
for $500 only to want to replace it 5 months later.

Would you enlighten me as to what the real advantages are to having the
highest performance graphics cards are? The reviews always talk about
frame rates but I assume that's an irrelevant measure because even cheap
graphics cards can generate frames faster than the human eye can handle.
Movies run at 24FPS and NTSC TV is 30FPS and we don't see any flicker in
either so I don't see how generating 130FPS would help. Do games generate
multiple scenarios at once and then pick a particular series for frames
based on input from the user? Do they increase the quality of their
rendering based on the capabilities of the card? Obviously the game
programmers aren't going to write games that require a pair of $500 cards
to run adequately, they have to aim their games at the hardware that most
consumers have which are older machines that weren't even state of the art
when they were new. However they must be doing something to keep
Nvidia and ATI happy because there is a real market for SLI and Crossfire
boards. So what is it in these cards that the games take advantage of?

 

[Boe]

I take it you use your PC for work and not gaming so it isn't of much
advantage for you to have a top of the line card. In a case where someone
doesn't enjoy First Person Shooters or games of that sort, there isn't any
reason to waste gobs of cash for gaming cards. Most middle of the road
cards will do 2d rendering as fast as the most expensive 3d card. They'll
also play movies back just fine.

If you enjoy playing 3d games such as FEAR, Quake4 or the latest TombRaider
(I'll admit I didn't think much of q4 and don't play TombRaider but enjoy
many other 3d games) you'll benefit from those expensive cards. The more
advanced cards will allow you to turn on the bells and whistles of the game
which make the graphics far more realistic - AF, AA, Soft Shadows etc.
These enhance the visual image which in turn makes the games far more
enjoyable for me. If I turn up the AA, AF or turn on softshadows, the frame
rate drops to about 10FPS which makes the game very choppy and unpleasant.
I'm sure the games coming out in the next year will be even more demanding
than FEAR which so far only plays well on the 1900 and you can't crank up
the resolution too much. I have a 30" screen which has a very high native
resolution. Unlike CRTs computer monitors which seem to display just about
every resolution well, LCDs at this point still have native resolutions
which are their best looking image.

I don't think even crossfired ATI 1900 cards could display FEAR at 24FPS in
my screens native resolution. The next verison might however.

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I take it you use your PC for work and not gaming so it isn't of much
advantage for you to have a top of the line card. In a case where someone
doesn't enjoy First Person Shooters or games of that sort, there isn't any
reason to waste gobs of cash for gaming cards. Most middle of the road
cards will do 2d rendering as fast as the most expensive 3d card. They'll
also play movies back just fine.

If you enjoy playing 3d games such as FEAR, Quake4 or the latest
TombRaider (I'll admit I didn't think much of q4 and don't play TombRaider
but enjoy many other 3d games) you'll benefit from those expensive cards.
The more advanced cards will allow you to turn on the bells and whistles
of the game which make the graphics far more realistic - AF, AA, Soft
Shadows etc. These enhance the visual image which in turn makes the games
far more enjoyable for me. If I turn up the AA, AF or turn on
softshadows, the frame rate drops to about 10FPS which makes the game very
choppy and unpleasant. I'm sure the games coming out in the next year will
be even more demanding than FEAR which so far only plays well on the 1900
and you can't crank up the resolution too much. I have a 30" screen which
has a very high native resolution. Unlike CRTs computer monitors which
seem to display just about every resolution well, LCDs at this point still
have native resolutions which are their best looking image.

I don't think even crossfired ATI 1900 cards could display FEAR at 24FPS
in my screens native resolution. The next verison might however.

Thanks for the explanation. Your right I don't play games, the last time I
played any was in the early 70s and then it was only games I wrote myself.

I was just curious about the technical details which to me are much more
interesting then then the games themselves. I'm surprised that it's
possible to overwhelm todays cards given the incredible amount of
processing power that even low end cards have. It's great news
for Nvidia and ATI that the game writers keep managing to find ways to
consume even more power.

BTW which LCD are you using? I was thinking of getting a 23" wide screen
monitor (30" is unusable for coding, I can see how it would be great for
games). The only big screen LCDs that I see in the stores anymore are
Apples, but I've read that you can't adjust Apple LCDs unless you are
running OSX.

 

[Boe]

I'm using the dell 30". I heard Mac was upping the quality of their 30"
because of the Dell competition. The Dell is very nice - I bought it
unseen because of a screwup I got it for $1330 with tax and shipping (should
have bought several ). It is GREAT for gaming - SO GLAD I bought it.
But it is a beast. I have an ATI x850 and I can't even run it in 2d mode in
native resolution. I run it at 1280 x 800 but native is double that I
believe. I'll have to build a new PC just to run it native since my MB is
AGP. Playing on a 30" screen can make some of the games seem SO much more
"immersive" I now do newbie gamer stuff like lean to the left or right
again during gameplay.

I realize gaming isn't for everyone but I thoroughly enjoy it. I usually
play for about 2 - 3 hours almost every week. I thoroughly enjoy Call of
Duty, Wolfenstein, HALO as well although the graphics are not NEARLY as
advanced as FEAR - I'd get them again if they remade them with the latest
engine though. FEAR is extremely 3 dimensional including lighting effects,
the the surface of cement, tiled floors, etc. I would imagine in 2-3 years,
they'll probably actually double the "realism" of the engines requiring a
significant improvement in card technology. I would say that the improvment
in FEAR over most other games(that I've seen) is nearly as significant as
the jump made by quake to OpenGL quake (old technology I know but the last
major jump in my opinion in 3d rendering). HalfLife2 was a pretty big leap
as well but I just didn't enjoy the game so I forgot about it til just now.

I would see Lucas make a 3rd Jedi game using the advanced engine but I heard
they are not making any more Jedi games for now. I tried COD2 but the
graphics were still quite primitive compared to other games I've seen.

If you've seen a pixar animation they are way ahead of the gaming engines
detail but they aren't realtime renderings. They use very impressive
cluster technology to create some fantastic animation but I would imagine
within 10 years we should see that level of realism/detail in games that you
control the action.

 

[Boe]

BTW - I would imagine Dell will have some great deals in Bensbargains.net on
the 24" 2405 model as they are about to replace it with the 2407. Since you
don't use it for gaming you probably won't care about the 2407 unless you
plan on shoing HD DVDs on your PC.

 

[Ed Light]

You can use 2 of the dual-usb port slot covers. I have 8 on the back that
way.
http://store.yahoo.com/directron/usbfemaleada.html
--
Ed Light

Smiley :-/
MS Smiley :-\

Send spam to the FTC at
(e-mail address removed)
Thanks, robots.

Bring the Troops Home:
http://bringthemhomenow.org

 

[None]

I'm using the dell 30". I heard Mac was upping the quality of their
30" because of the Dell competition. The Dell is very nice - I
bought it unseen because of a screwup I got it for $1330 with tax and
shipping (should have bought several ).

Can you kindly explain this 'screw up'? )

 

[Boe]

They said they were included in the quote of the 3 workstations I ordered.
I said are you sure? They said yes. So I ordered the workstations which
were rediculously low even without the screens (I knew the screens were not
included). When they didn't arrive I called and they had to investigate.
They offered a deal and I said I was told they were included. Eventually
they sold them for about $1200 each(before tax and shipping).

 

[john_doe]

Thanks - I did not know that. It does make me think I should be sure the
next system will support 4gb although I'll probably only get it with 2gb to
begin with. I'll check if the system I plan on getting will support 4 GB

Understand that "Support 4 GB" is meaningless unless they
spell out what speed eg PC3200 or PC2700 and what command
rate (1T, 2T) they force your ram to run at. Some
motherboards won't even recognize 4 GB when it's in the
slots.

If you want more than 2GB, you really want DDR2.

 

[None]

They said they were included in the quote of the 3 workstations I
ordered. I said are you sure? They said yes. So I ordered the
workstations which were rediculously low even without the screens (I
knew the screens were not included). When they didn't arrive I called
and they had to investigate. They offered a deal and I said I was told
they were included. Eventually they sold them for about $1200
each(before tax and shipping).

Outstanding! Congrats.