some motherboard/ cpu/ ram questions

What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0E ghz? The only difference
I see in the specs is that the 3.0E has a larger cache.

What does serial ata/ ultra ata mean?

What's the difference between single and dual channel memory?

What is raid for?

Thanks for any answers you can give.

"InsertNameHere" wrote in message
...

" What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0E ghz? The only difference I
see in the specs is that the 3.0E has a larger cache. "

The 3.0C has a 130nm Northwood core. It has an L1 cache of 12KB + 8KB, and
an L2 cache of 512MB.

The 3.0E has a 90nm Prescott core. It has an L1 cache of 12KB + 16KB, and
an L2 cache of 1MB. It supports SSE3, which the Northwood doesn't.

Prescott review: http://snipurl.com/9vc6
Further Northwood / Prescott comparison: http://snipurl.com/9vc5


" What does serial ata/ ultra ata mean? "

Ultra ATA / 33 / 66 / 100 / 133 and Serial ATA / 150 are the external speeds
of your hard drive.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/U/Ultra_ATA.html
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/Serial_ATA.html


" What's the difference between single and dual channel memory? "

All is explained in the introduction of this review:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...200_memory.php


" What is raid for? "

http://www.uni-mainz.de/~neuffer/scsi/what_is_raid.html

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:08:28 GMT, InsertNameHere
wrote:

What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0E ghz? The only difference
I see in the specs is that the 3.0E has a larger cache.

What does serial ata/ ultra ata mean?

What's the difference between single and dual channel memory?

What is raid for?

Thanks for any answers you can give.


A clarification and a couple more questions.

I know the letter after the 3.0 refers to the core, but which one to
choose? I will be playing games, mostly UT:2004 and Half-Life 2, and I
also dabble a little in video/photo editing, in that order.

How much better is ddr400 than ddr333? I already have 1gb pc2700
Kingston ValueRam. Would it be worth paying another $175+ for 1gb
ddr400?



Anything good or bad to say about any of these boards?

ABIT IS7-E
AOPEN AX4SPE-UN
GIGABYTE GA-8IPE1000-G
INTEL BOXD865PERL
MSI 865PE NEO2-V

"InsertNameHere" wrote in message
...
What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0E ghz? The only difference
I see in the specs is that the 3.0E has a larger cache.

What does serial ata/ ultra ata mean?

What's the difference between single and dual channel memory?

What is raid for?

Thanks for any answers you can give.

Larger cache will be significantly faster, but CPU speed is only part of
overall system performance. If you are not sure you need the larger cache,
then you don't.

SATA (serial ata) is a new, potentially faster interface for disk drives
that is gradually replacing IDE, which goes by several names, including
EIDE, PATA, and Ultra ATA. Right NOW, there is no performance gain by
choosing SATA over IDE. (IDE is already faster than the fastest hard
drives, so you gain nothing by upgrading to SATA) However, it would be a
good idea to buy SATA drives anyway, if you have to purchase new drives.
That way, they can more easily be recycled into your next system, if needed.

There is NO difference between single and dual channel memory. NONE. The
difference is in the mainboard chipset. Some mainboards can take two sticks
of DDR RAM and use them as one stick that is twice as wide. If you have
trouble grasping that concept, think of RAM like an Excel spreadsheet. Now
double the number of columns, and you have dual channel. This allows
information to be transferred to and from RAM faster, just like if a highway
is widened from two lanes to four. But there is no difference in the
memory. The difference is in the way the mainboard uses the EXACT SAME
memory. But if you want to use dual channel memory, you should buy two
sticks of RAM that are the same model number. They do NOT have to be
matched pairs, though. You gotta watch out for that marketing gimmick.
Some memory makers sell dual channel kits at a premium price over what two
SINGLE sticks of RAM would cost. That is a ripoff, as there is NO
difference in the memory itself.

RAID usually refers to using two hard disk drives as one, to increase
performance compared to a single hard disk drive. This is somewhat similar
to dual channel memory, sometimes. You can do two different things with
raid. You can speed up disk performance by using both drives at the same
time, so that they are essentially one large, fast hard drive. This is what
is usually referred to as "RAID". You can also make one drive an exact copy
of the other one (for a real-time backup). That is also RAID, but a less
popular use of RAID. Just like with dual channel memory, you will want
similar hard drives (but not necessarily identically matched pairs) to use
for raid. -Dave

Dave C. wrote:
"InsertNameHere" wrote in message
...

What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0E ghz? The only difference
I see in the specs is that the 3.0E has a larger cache.

What does serial ata/ ultra ata mean?

What's the difference between single and dual channel memory?

What is raid for?

Thanks for any answers you can give.


Larger cache will be significantly faster, but CPU speed is only part of
overall system performance. If you are not sure you need the larger cache,
then you don't.

SATA (serial ata) is a new, potentially faster interface for disk drives
that is gradually replacing IDE, which goes by several names, including
EIDE, PATA, and Ultra ATA. Right NOW, there is no performance gain by
choosing SATA over IDE. (IDE is already faster than the fastest hard
drives, so you gain nothing by upgrading to SATA) However, it would be a
good idea to buy SATA drives anyway, if you have to purchase new drives.
That way, they can more easily be recycled into your next system, if needed.

There is NO difference between single and dual channel memory. NONE. The
difference is in the mainboard chipset. Some mainboards can take two sticks
of DDR RAM and use them as one stick that is twice as wide. If you have
trouble grasping that concept, think of RAM like an Excel spreadsheet. Now
double the number of columns, and you have dual channel. This allows
information to be transferred to and from RAM faster, just like if a highway
is widened from two lanes to four. But there is no difference in the
memory. The difference is in the way the mainboard uses the EXACT SAME
memory. But if you want to use dual channel memory, you should buy two
sticks of RAM that are the same model number. They do NOT have to be
matched pairs, though. You gotta watch out for that marketing gimmick.
Some memory makers sell dual channel kits at a premium price over what two
SINGLE sticks of RAM would cost. That is a ripoff, as there is NO
difference in the memory itself.

RAID usually refers to using two hard disk drives as one, to increase
performance compared to a single hard disk drive. This is somewhat similar
to dual channel memory, sometimes. You can do two different things with
raid. You can speed up disk performance by using both drives at the same
time, so that they are essentially one large, fast hard drive. This is what
is usually referred to as "RAID". You can also make one drive an exact copy
of the other one (for a real-time backup). That is also RAID, but a less
popular use of RAID. Just like with dual channel memory, you will want
similar hard drives (but not necessarily identically matched pairs) to use
for raid. -Dave




In order to run true dual channel memory, yes it does have to be a
matched set, in that both sticks have to be the same size (not
necessarily the same speed, but if not you will not see performance as
good.) And the first kind of RAID you described is called RAID0. The
second one is called RAID1 and again yes they do have to be a matched
pair, as in same size and speed, not necessarily same manufacturer
though, although this helps in performance. As for your reccomendation
for SATA, there is a BIG difference in the performance of a SATA hard
drive as opposed to a regular IDE hard drive. Please don't confuse this
person with your ignorance.

InsertNameHere wrote:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 19:08:28 GMT, InsertNameHere
wrote:


What is the difference between 3.0 and 3.0E ghz? The only difference
I see in the specs is that the 3.0E has a larger cache.

What does serial ata/ ultra ata mean?

What's the difference between single and dual channel memory?

What is raid for?

Thanks for any answers you can give.



A clarification and a couple more questions.

I know the letter after the 3.0 refers to the core, but which one to
choose? I will be playing games, mostly UT:2004 and Half-Life 2, and I
also dabble a little in video/photo editing, in that order.

How much better is ddr400 than ddr333? I already have 1gb pc2700
Kingston ValueRam. Would it be worth paying another $175+ for 1gb
ddr400?



Anything good or bad to say about any of these boards?

ABIT IS7-E
AOPEN AX4SPE-UN
GIGABYTE GA-8IPE1000-G
INTEL BOXD865PERL
MSI 865PE NEO2-V


Regarding your question about the ram. Kingston valueRAM is one of the
best brands of ram I've come across. It's easy to overclock (or not,
your choice) and runs every bit as well as other brands. Unless you
just really want to spend the extra money buying ddr400, I wouldn't. You
won't see much of a performance boost out of the ddr400 as opposed to
the ddr333 (unless you overclock the 333, which is sometimes easier than
overclocking the 400. This is done by relaxing the ram timings, but if
you don't know what you're doing, then I wouldn't.

As for your question about the above boards you mentioned, the Abit
is the best of those choices. I know many people who have those boards,
and have nothing but good things to say about it. The MSI board is also
very good.

A clarification and a couple more questions.

I know the letter after the 3.0 refers to the core, but which one to
choose? I will be playing games, mostly UT:2004 and Half-Life 2, and I
also dabble a little in video/photo editing, in that order.

How much better is ddr400 than ddr333? I already have 1gb pc2700
Kingston ValueRam. Would it be worth paying another $175+ for 1gb
ddr400?



Anything good or bad to say about any of these boards?

ABIT IS7-E
AOPEN AX4SPE-UN
GIGABYTE GA-8IPE1000-G
INTEL BOXD865PERL
MSI 865PE NEO2-V



The AOpen is the best of the bunch, with the MSI board a close 2nd, and
everything else a distant 4th.

You're in a tough spot, as the RAM you have is good stuff, and it would not
be worth it to upgrade to DDR400. BUT, the processor you need won't match
perfectly with what you have. At the same time, I think it would be a waste
of money for you to spend ~$200 for the RAM that you really need, as the
performance difference won't be noticeable, other than a slight increase in
numbers of some certain benchmarks. A good compromise might be to buy a gig
of DDR400 to match an 800FSB processor, and then sell the gig of DDR333 on
ebay. But even if you get a good price for your current RAM, you will still
be out a good hundred bucks or so, for very little performance gain.
Basically, you have a tough decision to make, and nobody here can help you
with it, only offer their own opinions. There is no obvious RIGHT decision
here.

MY OPINION: Use the RAM you have. If you have extra money to spend, invest
in a faster video card. For a gamer, you can't possibly spend too much on a
video card. (!)

But this will mean your mainboard will slightly UNDER-clock your RAM, if you
choose a fast processor. A good choice of processor would be a 3.0E,
800FSB, 1M cache. But for that processor, there is no exact match of clock
speed/divider that will allow the processor to run at 800FSB AND the RAM to
run at 333. Most mainboards will run your RAM at ~320 to allow the
processor to run at full speed 800FSB.

But then again, you fork out the two hundred bucks for DDR400, and the
increase in overall system speed won't be nearly enough to justify the extra
two hundred bucks. IMHO -Dave

though, although this helps in performance. As for your reccomendation
for SATA, there is a BIG difference in the performance of a SATA hard
drive as opposed to a regular IDE hard drive. Please don't confuse this
person with your ignorance.

No, you are confused. SATA has the potential to be faster, just like PCI
Express has the potential to be faster than AGP. No doubt at some point in
the future, SATA will kick IDE's butt, performance wise. But it hasn't
happened yet. -Dave

"Dave C." wrote...

though, although this helps in performance. As for your reccomendation
for SATA, there is a BIG difference in the performance of a SATA hard drive
as opposed to a regular IDE hard drive. Please don't confuse this person with
your ignorance.

No, you are confused. SATA has the potential to be faster, just like PCI
Express has the potential to be faster than AGP. No doubt at some point in
the future, SATA will kick IDE's butt, performance wise. But it hasn't
happened yet.

Most SATA HDs, with the exception of the WD Raptors, are IDE drives with only
the interface electronics changed. They are subject to the exact same physical
limitations (spindle speed, head performance, cache size) as their IDE
predecessors. Therefore, their performance as SATA drives will not change from
their IDE roots.

OTOH, built-to-purpose SATA HDs -- the WD Raptors -- DO have significantly
increased performance over IDE HDs. They are closer in performance to 10K RPM
SCSI HDs.

On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 17:37:58 -0400, "Dave C." wrote:


The AOpen is the best of the bunch, with the MSI board a close 2nd, and
everything else a distant 4th.

Yea I like the features on that Aopen board very much and the review
I read said it was really good. The problem is that it says it
supports ddr400, it doesn't say ddr333, which is why I asked if it was
worth it to upgrade my ram. I was gonna ask if I could use my ddr333
ram in Aopen board, but I noticed that most of the boards I looked at
listed both ddr333 and ddr400, whereas the Aopen only said ddr400, so
I assume it doesn't support both like some other boards?


MY OPINION: Use the RAM you have. If you have extra money to spend, invest
in a faster video card. For a gamer, you can't possibly spend too much on a
video card. (!)


I already have a 9800pro.


Thanks for the response it was very helpful.