T
Tim
The last PC I built was about 3 years ago, my current Tyan Tiger 133 with dual
P3 850MHz cpu's. It has 512MB in it (4x128MB PC133).
Needless to say, I'm ready to upgrade. But, I need a little assistance to be
brought up on the speed of things.
I am looking at the following:
Intel Pentium-4 @ 3.0GHz, 800MHz FSB
ABIT IC7-G Motherboard
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=4
The other items I already have like Video Card, CD/DVD Drives, Floppy Drives,
and a Case (with already a 330Watt P4 Ready supply in it)...... and I intend on
keeping my Promise FastTrak TX2000 along with the hard drives with the array, so
SATA is not important to me at this time.
Something I do not understand is the "Dual Channel DDR400" this board supports.
By grouping them in two, I obviously assume you need two DIMM's to work
(remember, I only have to put 1 in mine now... so this is new to me). Also
this board says it supports "configurable ECC function" Does this mean I MUST
use ECC memory? Or can I use non-ECC memory instead?
Has anyone used this motherboard? I have a SoundBlaster Live Platinum (the
original platinum package they released...?... 3 or 4 years ago). I don't know
whether or not to use it or the onboard audio. What I like about the SB Live is
that I can output in all 4 speakers all the time (front & rear satellite
speakers) using the card's Rear & Front Audio-out's. Does the onboard audio
support something like that, or only support directional audio when playing a
supported game? (or am I going to be better off keeping my Live card in the
system and disabling the onboard audio? I really like the Optical Audio In & Out
feature, a feature my Live card does not have in Optical but only the S/PDIF
Coax).
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
P3 850MHz cpu's. It has 512MB in it (4x128MB PC133).
Needless to say, I'm ready to upgrade. But, I need a little assistance to be
brought up on the speed of things.
I am looking at the following:
Intel Pentium-4 @ 3.0GHz, 800MHz FSB
ABIT IC7-G Motherboard
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/products.php?categories=1&model=4
The other items I already have like Video Card, CD/DVD Drives, Floppy Drives,
and a Case (with already a 330Watt P4 Ready supply in it)...... and I intend on
keeping my Promise FastTrak TX2000 along with the hard drives with the array, so
SATA is not important to me at this time.
Something I do not understand is the "Dual Channel DDR400" this board supports.
By grouping them in two, I obviously assume you need two DIMM's to work
(remember, I only have to put 1 in mine now... so this is new to me). Also
this board says it supports "configurable ECC function" Does this mean I MUST
use ECC memory? Or can I use non-ECC memory instead?
Has anyone used this motherboard? I have a SoundBlaster Live Platinum (the
original platinum package they released...?... 3 or 4 years ago). I don't know
whether or not to use it or the onboard audio. What I like about the SB Live is
that I can output in all 4 speakers all the time (front & rear satellite
speakers) using the card's Rear & Front Audio-out's. Does the onboard audio
support something like that, or only support directional audio when playing a
supported game? (or am I going to be better off keeping my Live card in the
system and disabling the onboard audio? I really like the Optical Audio In & Out
feature, a feature my Live card does not have in Optical but only the S/PDIF
Coax).
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
