Core Duo, Crossfire, 3x Scope, VISTA/Dualboot

araaran · Post by **araaran** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 11:43 am

It is the holy grail for me.

> I like my sound.
> I like my graphics.
> I want BOTH.

Specifically I want to be able to sit down and write music on a full blown, 3 card 45 dsp scope system and then follow it up by playing Doom 3 or something with pant-wettingly good graphics.

They are my two obsessions. My pocket runs to one good PC but is not deep enough to stretch to having two high end PCs .

DOES ANYONE ELSE FEEL THE SAME?? Tell me I am not alone

Here is something I saw that I would like your feedback on:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... ire-eSATA2

Three PCI slots, 2 graphics card slots, nothing that looks as if it would foul full length creamware boards. Could it be the one? Its VISTA ready for when our friends release drivers

I would appreciate anyones feedback. This forum is great, you guys [gals?] are great. Thx

Post by **garyb** » Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:15 pm

i don't think there's a lot of experience with the 945 chipset. most likely, it'll run just fine. remember, asrock is not really a good motherboard. it is a kid's toy motherboard(feature packed for fun, but cheap). still, for your purposes, i'd say worth a try.

araaran · Post by **araaran** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 4:24 am

Are there any other 3 PCI slot Crossfire CoreDuo motherboards out there that I havnt found.

Esp. ones that are not "toys"?

Fede · Post by **Fede** » Fri Jan 26, 2007 5:40 am

There's no need for P965 or later, 945 is fine here with my intel d945pvs, but no conroe support on most 945 based mobos. There's not an official reason for that, if not marketing hype.
Regarding performance P965 is, of course, better in bandwith of FSB, memory, USB, but seems to produce more heat and to cosume more power (and cost a little more)
Tom's hardware has an article about the performance of southbridges ICH7 vs ICH8 saying in conclusion that:

ICH7 offers four Serial ATA/300 ports and up to eight USB 2.0 ports; ICH8 and the nforce 6 MCP come with six SATA/300 controllers and 10 USB 2.0 options. Also, don't forget that P965 and ICH8 do not support ultraata anymore. [...]
While it has been around for more than 18 months - which is an eternity in the hardware business - Intel's ICH7-R still offers very good performance across the board. It is inferior to the newer ICH8 and the nforce 6 MCP in the storage I/O performance benchmarks, but apart from that there certainly isn't any reason to replace an ICH7-powered system.

see:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/01/03/ ... ge_battle/

cheers
Fede