Motor said:
I would like to purchase one of the new 890 chipset/SB850 mobo's for
AMD processors. As long as I'm gonna upgrade I might as well get USB 3.0
and e-sata capability. I bought a new pc case with an e-sata port on the
front bezel. Where would I plug the wire onto the motherboard? Since I
can't seem to find one with internal e-sata headers, do I have to
stretch the wire to the I/O port on backside of motherboard? Or will any
sata header do?
Unfortunately I don't see a lot of options for new 890/850 chipset,
USB3 and e-sata motherboards. Thanks.
I believe they make SATA to ESATA cables. This one is relatively short,
at 18". Running signals like that, through too many connectors and
too much cable length, would cause CRC errors on the cable. You may
find, it is simply better to just leave an ESATA cable plugged into
the back of the computer, and swing it around towards the front
of the computer, for easy connection to your ESATA devices. Then you
could go with a good quality 2 meter long ESATA cable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812120130
If you use that 18" thing, to wire the inside of the computer,
restrict yourself to 1 meter or shorter ESATA to ESATA cables
running from the bezel to the external drive. ESATA has a 2 meter
total length suggested limit, and using short cables would bring
you up to about 3/4ths of that limit. But personally,
I'd be worried about the quality of the bezel PCB, connectors,
and impedance control, and wouldn't touch that bezel option
"with a barge pole". Use a simple ESATA to ESATA cable, run it
from the back, and you'll be much better off. There is a lot
of bezel crap, they shouldn't have bothered with.
*******
If by "selection" of 890FX boards, you mean cheap, then look at this.
BIOSTAR TA890FXE AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s ATX AMD Motherboard $140
( But, no USB3 )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138193
The board claims to have "4 x PCI-E x16 2.0 Slot (x16,x16, x4, x1)"
http://www.biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/content.php?S_ID=482
You could stick a PCI Express x1 Rev.2 USB3 card, into one of the
PCI Express slots, and get your USB3 that way. But the slot spacing
issues, don't leave you very many options for video.
PCI PCI x4 x16 x1 x16 CPU_socket
| |
Vid USB3
Card Card
Doing it that way, leaves room for the video card cooler. But really
doesn't make good use of the slots. The other option, a little less
wasteful, is like this.
PCI PCI x4 x16 x1 x16 CPU_socket
| |
USB3 Vid
Card Card
The reason the Rev.2 slots are good, is they don't bottleneck
the USB3 chip. All PCI Express slots are Rev.2 .
http://www.biostar-usa.com/upload/Manual/A89FA-A3T_100318_B.zip
*******
This one is $190 ($180 if you ever get the rebate) and has USB3 onboard.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128441
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3519#ov
The slots go something like this. If you plug into the x8 slot
at the bottom, it slows the first video card slot.
x1 x1
x16 x8 <--- sharing
x1 x1
x16 x16
x4 x4
--- x8 <--- sharing
PCI PCI
Probably still a lot of wasted slots, if you have wide video cards.
I suppose it depends on which slot layout you like better. The
Gigabyte board makes a Crossfire setup a bit more practical.
Paul
