Motherboard choices? (AM2)

[Golden Dragoon]

Idealy I would like a Nforce or ATi based Board with 1 PCI-E x16 slot (I am not worried about graphical performcance for this comp, I just feel a dual core would help a lot, over the agin 2800+ barton I have in it curently), and one that will overclock well, but my problem is I want them to be a drop in replacement for a system I am running right now, which means I need one with 2 IDE channels (The majority of boards I have looked at have only 1) as this system is mostly used for video editing and thus has two PATA drives and Three more SATA drives 2 in raid and one that the Windows/Ubuntu install sits on, that along with the two dvd burners, means I need to make sure I can still use them (unless a IDE add in card can deliver good performance for the raided drives, and even then Linux suport would be something I would like)

I know I will have to rebuild the raid array anyway, and I will get some people simply telling me to buy a couple of SATA drives to replace the PATA ones, but the thing is, the drives are 320gb each, and pretty new, so I don't relish the thought of replacing them, a I don't want the hastle of buying a couple of new rives and selling on these two.

Thanks in advance.

[Marcvs]

have a look at the nf m2 nview (wifi) and try and pickup a cheap PATA raid card

[staffsMike]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=451486

this has two PATA ports but i'm not sure whether you can raid them as it's sata raid. Don't know much about raid..

[Golden Dragoon]

The PATA drives are not in a raid, they are the destination drives where everything go's when it is done, the two SATA drives are the ones that are raided, and are what video files live on when being worked on

[staffsMike]

Then I stand by my recommendation

[Golden Dragoon]

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=451486

OR

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=468707

The Foxconn one has a review on hexus, and seems to equal or beat the Sapphire board they reviewed at the same time that cost twice as much, but I have never used a foxconn board and would like to know if they are reliable? and is the nforce 570 chipset a worthwhile upgrade from the NF4 ultra?

[Golden Dragoon]

Bump, anyone?

[Max Tractor]

I have ran the foxconn, it only has 1 native ide channel, the other ide channel is jmicron. Alright for overclocking, extremely stable vcore, but no working locks, bit picky at booting sometimes with or with out overclock, but could have been the ram. Have a look at the dfi(never thought I would recomend a dfi board) but they have what you are after and clock very well

DFI Lanparty Infinity nF Ultra II-M2/G

http://www.cclonline.com/product-inf...nfultraii-m2/g

I have also ran the biostar tforce550/abit nview

The biostar is a great board, but only has 1 ide channel, being in the same boat as you, I also need 2 ide channels, I never settled on it, but an outstanding board at £45 pity about the 1 ide channel. As for me, I went over to the other side, msi p6n-sli fi

cheers

Another thing to note the dfi may require a bios update for brisbane cores

[Golden Dragoon]

How about this system then?

Abit KN9, NF4 Ultra
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=451486

Athlon X2 3600+
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=565178

2Gb Corsair TwinX XMS2
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291363

And some sort of low-mid end PCI-E graphics (X1300 or something)

I think I can safely assume that swaping these components for the ones I curently have in that machine (AXP 2800+ barton @3200+, Asus A7N8X-E and 1GB of samsung ram, and a GF4Ti 4200) especialy for the use that it has been getting for the last couple of years.
Can anyone sugest anything better than this?

[Golden Dragoon]

Ok, I managed to pick up a PCI-E FireGL V3300 (128mb) for dirt cheap off ebay, I have no idea what Radeon it is based off, but my graphics card is sorted, anyway as I asked before anyone see anything wrong or a bit weak in my specs above?

[BUFF]

the basic KN9 (nF4 Ultra) should do you fine - it'll even overclock handily if you wanted to.
if your X3600+ is a Brisbane you'll want to update to the latest BIOS otherwise you'll get false CPU temp readings.
& given the current cheapness of DDR2 I would probably buy DDR2 6400 (800)

[Golden Dragoon]

£46.46 for 667mhz
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=291363

£70.08 for 800mhz
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=255300

I honestly cannot justify the extra expense, unless you can point out some DDR2 800 at the same sort of price as the corsair 667mhz?

I will likely order all this lot in the next week or so, but has anyone any info on when Scan will start selling the X2 BE-2300, it is almost identicle to the X2 3600+ but has a lowe Vcore and 45W TDP instead of 65W, if it is very soon I will hld off for an extra week or so, as the prices are expected to be almost exactly the same as the equivelent processor under the older naming scheme.

[SuicidaL]

try this

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/(14777)...l-Channel.aspx

i've got 3gb of this stuff and it's good, and put it this way 10 months ago i got only a gig of it and it cost more than 2gb does now.