Reasons to pass on the NF3 150/K8T800 's and wait for the nForce3 250's? [sterling reputation] [nforce3 250]
Q: That Asus VIA board has all the right features, has been shown to OC pretty and has a good price ($ 140). What does the nForce3 250 boards to bring that VIA can not now? I know VIA has a sterling reputation for less than in the past had, but does so now with these plates?
Re:Well, some people (like guy and I) run file sharing services for networks (though my network is a home LAN that doesn't have near the requirements of his). We would prefer to have something (1000mbit/sec or 125MB/sec) that's a little faster than our hard disks, as opposed to something that's much slower (100mbit/sec or 12.5MB/sec).
Not everyone has a hard disk that's that slow either! :Q ()
BTW, those speeds can be realised when two gigabit adapters are pumping 800 Mbps back and forth EACH WAY all AT ONCE! Try doing that with a rogue chipset! 
Cheers!
Re:Are there any VIA boards that support the FX-51?
Re:nForce 150: 600Mhz Hypertransport links, currently show no performance difference. May change as processor matures however.
nForce 250: 800Mhz Hypertransport links (rated Hypertransport specification).
K8T800: 800Mhz Hypertransport links (rated Hypertransport specification). Two chip layout, this dosent seem to matter as of right now however.
-Por
Re:So for a gamer there is nothing lacking in the 150's?
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Alright, so you can dish one file, out of RAM to multiple users…. CSA lan can transfer at up to 100 megabytes per second…. that's enough to max out 2 people's HDs…. Also consider you'll need a costly gigabit switch, and the involved computers need gigabit lan!One file? My Office2000 AIP comprises nearly 20000 files totalling about 940MB, if I recall correctly.
I have EVERY intention of acquiring a costly gigabit switch at work… a 24-port unmanaged one for the top of our stack (about $1200) and an 8-port one for my office, which I'll probably buy out of my own pocket (around $160-220 for the Linksys/Cisco ones).
If we can get our hands on MCP-S1000 nForce2 boards for next fiscal years' builds… 
Otherwise we'll use Intel Pro/1000MT gigabit desktop NICs in our heavy-use systems, I think.
edit: btw, I'll be putting my rig through this whole scenario today, we got parts for 7 more AthlonXP rigs yesterday and they will all be squeaking like a nestful of baby birds wanting their Office2000 worm, as well as other stuff (Acrobat Reader, FilZip, patches…)
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Does it bother anyone that the CSA lan is WAY faster than our hard drives? What's the point, exactly?
Well, some people (like guy and I) run file sharing services for networks (though my network is a home LAN that doesn't have near the requirements of his). We would prefer to have something (1000mbit/sec or 125MB/sec) that's a little faster than our hard disks, as opposed to something that's much slower (100mbit/sec or 12.5MB/sec).
Remember, just because you don't need it, doesn't mean that nobody does.
"I dont believe it would effect you at all."
- should be -
"I don't believe it would affect you at all."
Re:Originally posted by: guy
"Gigabit Ethernet can eat the whole PCI bus by itself, yet they've got it sharing with tack-on PCI Firewire chips, PCI RAID chips, plus whatever you plug into your PCI slots themselves"
As a gamer and photo editor, how would this effect me?
I dont believe it would effect you at all.
Re:"Gigabit Ethernet can eat the whole PCI bus by itself, yet they've got it sharing with tack-on PCI Firewire chips, PCI RAID chips, plus whatever you plug into your PCI slots themselves"
As a gamer and photo editor, how would this effect me?
Re:Alright, so you can dish one file, out of RAM to multiple users…. CSA lan can transfer at up to 100 megabytes per second…. that's enough to max out 2 people's HDs…. Also consider you'll need a costly gigabit switch, and the involved computers need gigabit lan!
Re:Imagine your system has an entire Office2000 Administrative Installation Point cached in RAM, and your RAM has a straight-shot link to your gigabit NIC > gigabit switch > multiple hungry desktop PCs wanting an Office2000 installation.
Not only can it serve the files at warp speed, it's not tieing up the PCI bus (and thus your SCSI cards) in the process, because the data is on the CSA bus or the Hypertransport, as the case may be. The PCI bus is left free for other stuff.Re:Does it bother anyone that the CSA lan is WAY faster than our hard drives? What's the point, exactly?
Re:nForce3 250Gb's native in-the-chipset gigabit Ethernet is very attractive to me for business use (ditto for the nForce2 MCP-S1000 southbridges that are supposed to be coming out). So far, only Intel's CSA architechture is offering that type of setup on the desktop.
While I see several VIA-based boards with gigabit Ethernet, they run it off of the PCI bus. Gigabit Ethernet can eat the whole PCI bus by itself, yet they've got it sharing with tack-on PCI Firewire chips, PCI RAID chips, plus whatever you plug into your PCI slots themselves… and hey, it might work pretty well most of the time, but I want mine to work well under an all-out onslaught where the NIC is pulling a whole Office2000 installation straight from my system's RAM at warp speed.
nForce3 250's will also be equipped with native support for up to six SATA devices IIRC, and up to six ATA133 devices too. One of the ATA channels can be overclocked to ATA150 speed, and you can mix & match to build and morph RAID arrays across all 12 of these drive positions. They have driver-level firewalling planned and I forget what else.
Re:Aside from a PCI/AGP lock it seems to have everything. Then again, I just checked out the Chaintech NF3 150 board and it doesn't seem to have anything missing either (has SATA, RAID, LAN, and the PCI/AGP lock). Maybe my question should be: any reason to pass on the Chaintech NF3 150 board and wait for the NF3 250's
Re:I was also asking myself the same question. Ive heard alot of good things about the Asus K8T800, and for the price/performance comparison it looks even better. Most likely the new nforce3 won't bring that much else to the table that the K8T800 hasn't already. But don't quote me because I haven't done my homework on the nforce3 yet.
Related posts
Tags: nforce3 250, sterling reputation