Hi, Roger.
There's not a lot of traffic in the EPoX newsgroup. Our theory is that it's
because so few of us have trouble with our mobos. (Maybe it's also partly
because there are not as many users of EPoX boards as some other brands.)
Could be, I don't know enough about them one way or the other. OTOH
I've used a lot of motherboards over the years. My field and degree
are in CS and I've been building my own systems for about 12 years.
I've had my own computer since the OSI C2-8P in 1989 or 80. It still
sets in the basement. It 's a one MHz 6502 with 48K of Dynamic RAM
(16KX1) 16KB cost as much as 2 X 1 Gig DDR2-800 (PC2-6400)
A single 16K X 1 chip was around $29.
I mentioned finishing up an Athlon 64 FX 62 2800, (Silent Square
cooler- modified to fit) with 3 WD 500 Gig SATA-3 drives, 4 Gig of
DDR2-800, and a Sapphire X1950XT graphics card. Thermaltake 750 watt
PS and Thermaltake full size tower. OS is XP Pro 64, It cost about
half of what that old C28P did with a pair of 8" floppy drives, no
monitor and no keyboard. I had to hunt those up.
I have only one computer, so I don't have much chance to compare mobos, but
We have 5 here, but they run all the way from the old 2.8 XP+ to the
64 FX62 dual core (AI OC'd to as much as 3450). They are all tied
together with a gigabit LAN using CAT5e. Total storage capacity is
over 6 Terabytes. Most is used for Scanned and digital images along
with some multimedia. So far I've scanned in over 30,000 "old family
slides"
http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm which is one reason
for all the storage. Then I also backup the computers across the
network. I've stuck with XP Pro due to a lot of complaints I've run
into about Vista and DRM. OTOH the machine is also capable of XP Pro
32 and LINUX.
this is my third EPoX and I've liked them all. This MF570SLI was installed
I've used MSI, ASUS, Biorstar (inexpensive) and a number of others and
have had good luck with all of them. Of them all I like the ASUS M2N
SLI Deluxe the best, but it's also the newest with the most features.
I've only had one board go bad and that was with the help of a lot of
high voltage supplied by mother nature.
in December, along with Vista Ultimate x64 (and dual-booting other versions
of Windows and Vista). It is my first PCI-express board, so I had to retire
my AIW 9600 AGP and installed a new X1600 Pro PCI-e. I'm not a gamer or
overclocker, so this is all the graphics power I need. The mobo has, as the
I'm running Microsoft's Flight Sim FSX which works pretty well on the
new machine, but they really need to do some major rewriting on that
program as it's CPU bound and doesn't work the graphics card all that
hard. With a 1024 X 768 X 32 display it runs well with 256 Meg of
video ram in the X1950XT. I really need to go with an 8800 for 1280 X
124 X 768 or the top end X1950XTX 512 Meg. BTW with the smaller planes
even doing aerobatics with the display at 1280 it seems to run fine.
However I ordered a 22" wide screen (1680 X 1050) and that is going to
require a larger graphics card. I've been waiting for the ATI cards
to come out with DX10. I have three free upgrades to Vista with the
current OEM XP Pro packages and I may install one on the FX62 2800 in
a dual, or multi boot configuration.
name implies, the nVidia nForce 570 SLI chipset, plus 3 PCI, 2 PCI-e (x1)
and 2 PCI-e (x16) slots; 10 USB 2.0 connectors; 2 1-Gb Ethernet ports; 1
P-ATA and 6 S-ATA connectors, plus 2 more eSATA ports for external SATA
devices. I put an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ dual-core CPU into its Socket AM2
(940-pin), along with 2 GB of DDRII-800 PC6400 SDRAM. It's running 2 DVD
writers (PATA) plus 4 SATA HDs (2 standalone and 2 300 GB Barracudas as a
RAID1 mirror, my first try at RAID), all internal. It's not quite
state-of-the-art, but it's close enough for now - for me. ;<)
When I started my last one a couple months back it was the fastest
Athlon going. In the two weeks it took to get the parts and assemble
it they had the 64FX62 3000 out. Two months later the FX62 2800 is
about half the price I paid and they have at least one more that is
still faster than the 3000 (socket F)
In the past, I always insisted on "more slots!" My previous EPoX 8KDA3+ had
6 PCI slots. At first, 3 years ago, I used nearly all of them. But then I
I have a HDTV tuner and video capture card, second gigabit LAN on a
PCI card, 4 extra USB 2 ports in addition to all that came with the
motherboard, In the new machine M2N there are only 2 useable PCI
slots due to the PCIe card and the TV tuner takes up two slots. It
only uses one, but like the PCIe card sticks over the slot below it.
I'm also trying to find a source for the "Black Magic" video capture
cards. They are HDCP compliant which HDMI inputs, but unfortunately
not cheap. Well, they might be cheap...I haven't tried one yet, but
they are not inexpensive.
got Internet via cable and retired my PCI modem. Then Vista arrived;
Creative drug their feet about drivers so long that I retired my
Cable reduced my Internet cost by a very large amount. Prior to cable
I had DSL and as I'm well out from the switch gear it cost extra for a
dedicated, digital line. The phone line alone was over $90 a month
for not much over 128K. Add to that, the dedicated IP at my ISP along
with "LAN on demand" and web hosting and it was steep. Now it's $29 at
the ISP and about the same for Charter Cable.
SoundBlaster card and now use the onboard Realtek audio. With all that
built in, the only PCI card I'm using now (just because it's here) is a
legacy card with 4 more USB ports.
I really need to upgrade the other PCs, or at least this one and one
other to dual cores as I usually end up with so much *stuff* running
they get bogged down while the dual core machines just shift the load
around. I can even bog one of them down, but not often.
The MF570SLI cost me $138 from Newegg 3 months ago. It seems to me that
The ASUS M2N was right in that ball park. It was part of a package
with the processor with prices of $149 showing for the M2N. I think
it's currently running $139. the processor is all the way down to $389
scrimping on a mainboard is false economy. The difference between the
cheapest and this one is only about $50 and it makes a BIG difference in
performance and in options available to me.
I've been tying to stick with motherboards using the nVidia chip sets,
but VIA PCIe video cards. The combination has worked quite well for
me.
Now I'm waiting for the next generation of AMD and Intel to hit the
market. Currently if you are pushing the edge Intel has a small
advantage, but both Intel and AMD base *their* figures on all the
cores running. I am more interested in what each core can do before
I'm interested in what all of them can do. In a number of cases the
multiple core effective speed is quite high while the individual
cores as a bit on the slow side.
Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
)