Assuming my system is dead recommend me:

[Gibbo]

Assuming my system is dead recommend me a new motherboard and RAM combination.

Main use will be for a recording studio and video editing environment ( plus some web, a little stategy gaming a bit of web design some photo work).

It must be able to accomodate:
3 PCI cards - essential as I run 2 different PCI soundcards dedicated to different functions within the studio + I have need of a parallel port so I have a PCI parallel card - this device could possibly be replaced.
PCI-e graphics
4 IDE drives
4 SATA drives
1 Floppy (optional)
It must have 4 USB2 ports (minimum - yes I know about hubs but I have so many devices that I need 4 ports)
It must have onboard IEEE1394
External SATA connection
Ethernet ( WIFI would be nice)


Does any such current motherboard exist other than the P5WDH Deluxe that appears to have gone tits up and is old tech.

I'd be looking to mate it with a quad core CPU I suppose as my old S775 could also be fried
and some new RAM (4GB? )

So what say you guys?
I ain't built a comp nor kept abreast of tech for 3 years....

[Mblaster]

Everything there looks fairly easy to find other than the 4xIDE devices (guessing you only need 2xIDE ports?). Most boards these days only have a single IDE port to save space because they're pretty big. Not all boards will have 3 PCI slots, but there's good number out there with that.

If you need to loose some IDE devices, I suggest you replace you CD/DVD drives with S-ATA ones, since it'll probably be the cheapest part to replace, or if you think you might need new HDDs soon then it's a good time to upgrade.

[Gibbo]

Everything there looks fairly easy to find other than the 4xIDE devices (guessing you only need 2xIDE ports?). Most boards these days only have a single IDE port to save space because they're pretty big. Not all boards will have 3 PCI slots, but there's good number out there with that.

If you need to loose some IDE devices, I suggest you replace you CD/DVD drives with S-ATA ones, since it'll probably be the cheapest part to replace, or if you think you might need new HDDs soon then it's a good time to upgrade.

i have 3 IDE HDDs and a DVD writer - so yeah only 2 ports but 4 devices.
I really don't want to have to ghost these discs onto new ones.

My comp blew up yesterday so this is totally unplanned and I don't really have the cash to deal with it right now - but work is waiting.....

[manwithnoname]

3 PCI slots you should be ok.
I'm not sure about 4 IDE devices, can you get an SATA DVD drive and also ditch one of the IDE HD for an SATA one?

EDIT Not sure if these are any good:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Newli...Drive-to-SATA)

[Gibbo]

3 PCI slots you should be ok.
I'm not sure about 4 IDE devices, can you get an SATA DVD drive and also ditch one of the IDE HD for an SATA one?

I really don't want to ditch any of my 3 HD drives if I can help it.

[manwithnoname]

May be one of these:
http://www.dabs.com/products/startec...?refs=47430000

[s3ds]

last time i needed 4 IDE i got one of these
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Lycom...-Raid-0-1-Jbod
that makes 1 pci-e x16 1 pci-c and 3 pci slots
so i would get one of these ( i have not used either )
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-SATA-RAID-ATX
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX
as for memory i would use this or the 4-4-4-12 version
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(...d-CAS-5-5-5-18

[scaryjim]

There are IDE PCI cards out there, but that would be another PCI slot used up! If you can find a board with 4 PCI slots you could look at getting one of these which adds a second IDE channel and 2 more SATA drives... Otherwise you could try those IDE - SATA adaptors - ebuyer also have a couple of different ones: or the PCIe x1 IDE controller that manwithnoname suggests from DABS would also do the trick nicely!

If you decide to go for a completely new build, something like this Gigabye nForce AM2+ board would meet the need quite cheaply - PICe x16 for graphics, 2x PCIe x1 so you could easily add an extra IDE channel, floppy, 1 onboad IDE, 6 sata, 4 PCI, 2 Firewire + 1 by header, 8 USB + 4 by headers, gigabit lan (and you could add a wireless card - either PCI or a USB stick). The one thing it doesn't have is eSata, but you can get pass through brackets or add another expansion card (you must be able to get PCIe x1 esata cards too, surely!).

In fact, it's quite hard to find a board that meets all of your requirements in one package: the Gigabyte is the best I've found so far for providing most of the features onboard and enough expansion slots to add the functionality you need (even after you use 3 PCI slots it still has a spare PCI and two PCIe x1). That board is ~ £55, so you could add a Phenom II X3 720 BE and 4GB of RAM (i'm assuming you already have a graphics card!) to upgrade your entire subsystem for ~ £200, or pick up something like the price-reduce Phenom II X4 940 BE instread (if you'd prefer a quad core) which would add about £40 to the cost. That lot should see you right for some time to come!

[scaryjim]

...i would get one of these ( i have not used either )
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...-SATA-RAID-ATX
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX

Not to pick on your choice of motherboards in general (they both look like good boards) but the OP stated that Firewire was essential, and neither of those boards have it...

[Gibbo]

I have ordered one of these:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-ATX
and one of these:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Intel...che-85x-Retail
and this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/4GB-(...S-5-5-5-15-EPP
and this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Pione...-Black-OEM-NEW!

I looked at getting a P45 chipset and a PCI-e firewire adaptor and liked the look of the P5QSE plus but then discovered that my cooler [Noctua NH-U12F] would only fit that board in the wrong orientation so settled for the P43 chipset as above.

and I'm going to ditch the 80GB IDE drive ( not before copying its contents )

It's been an expensive couple of days!!!



Now how to make the best of those 4GB of RAM under XP Pro 32 bit.......

[scaryjim]

Now how to make the best of those 4GB of RAM under XP Pro 32 bit.......

Simple - use Windows 7 RC X64 instead It's free and it'll give you more than a year of happy computing before you need to decide whether to buy a copy or not - for my money it's probably just about going to be worth shelling out for...

Happy recording

[Gibbo]

Simple - use Windows 7 RC X64 instead It's free and it'll give you more than a year of happy computing before you need to decide whether to buy a copy or not - for my money it's probably just about going to be worth shelling out for...

Happy recording

Driver support issues I believe.

I don't think RME have drivers yet
and I know m-Audio don't.

Also NI plugins don't yet work properly on a 64bit OS (even via bitbridge)

Oh and ReFX Nexus is 32 bit only....

There's myriad reasons for not going 64bit yet

[s3ds]

Not to pick on your choice of motherboards in general (they both look like good boards) but the OP stated that Firewire was essential, and neither of those boards have it...

oops lol i forgot about that
the electric went off for 30 min between reading the post and answering