Hello,
Specific Motherboard Recommendation
Rather than favorites, the key is what features YOU want. As in my previous post for instance: if you want ECC (and you should) that significantly cuts the field, if you want 4 DIMM sockets that also cuts down the field. An so on.
Also mobo selection probably should be held off thru June if you can. Will be many newcomers, a number of oversights corrected, maybe even some new features on some mobos. And of course, a better chance of having the mobos tested, benchmarked and reviewed by
a number of independants.
Hope this helps, however some things you gotta sort out for yourself.
I believe if you start listing the mobo features you want and then find out what mobos end up in that universe, that you may end up trading off some features.
Sound Cards
Most sound cards use/abuse the processor by offloading HW tasks and thereby being cheaper and at the same time rescource hogs. For another viewpoint check Anandtech, I believe he has a review of this card. Do check the Guillemot link, they have the full specs & info.
Lastly, the full HW implementation of voices cuts down on processor requirements. But the big deal is the onboard processing power of this card. That is what sets its ability to be main processor friendly and is the reason I included it in my original post.
This is an overlooked way to decrease processor load and use it for "real" processing. However this card is also admirable in several other rights from quality construction and gold plated RCA connectors, to the audiophile playback quality and advanced features to the gamer and composer aspects of the card.
IDE RAID (Promise Trakker)
Suggest you and any others you can convince, sign onto Anandtech BBS and request that he do some benchmarks... it has already been suggested by several & with enough requests I'm sure he will oblige.
The ~25% increase is probably quite conservative and the Promise link does have the specs including data rates. But requesting the review is the best answer since it yields absolute values to compare.
c't Magazine
BTW, c't is a good link to check now and then. They don't translate many of the articles but they are a premeir computer magazine recognized pretty much worldwide and should you ever read completely through one of their benchmark articles you'll see why they are truly impartial in their assessments.
Closing
Any other questions, I'll be happy to put in my two cents. However will only be around under one month. Signed on to SI (trial period) just to be able to reply to your thread. Interesting that you need to be a "paid member" to post.
Networm |
