Wonderful, great, terrific!!

Aod - can ya tell the rest of us what the real terms mean - like what will this actually DO so much better than the "obselete" boards? Why are they going to become obselete? Is it really going to affect normal people - not the "must have all new tech and stay at top of the line" freaks of techiness.....

I remember that they said CD's would make tapes obselete - and after around 20years...........its still only halfway there!!!!

Edited by - Chips on 6/25/2004 8:13:31 AM

it will affect "normal" people although not straight away, but by Christmas you won't be able to get jack else; that's how the production schedule works. There's normally a 6 month tail off period while the new stuff gradually gets stocked and the old stuff gets run down.

By the time the spending season starts in earnest, te stores will be full of the new stuff. However those with an eye for a bargain on a ready-made should come to Uncle Taw's errm I mean go to the January sales and get the P4 Socket 478 stuff that'll be sold as clearance.

however current stuff will keep you going happily for another year to 18months before you should really think about upgrading, and then only if you want to play new games.

this may seem all mindboggling for those without the technical experience, but the truth is that the PCI (Peripheral Component Integration) system bus is ancient, it goes back at least a decade. It has been a boon in that it allowed proper plug and play; whereas before with the ISA (industry Standard Architecture) bus the card had to have its resource allocation set by jumpers, with PCI the system allocates resources itself. However the bus speed of PCI has been bottlenecking computers for years, while the components ie cpus, ram, video adaptors etc have been racing ahead in terms of speed and bandwidth the system bus hasn't kept pace at all. PCI-Xpress will resolve that issue but anything old PCI will not go into PCI-Xpress, it's too fast for the old stuff.

as to those 2.88mb floppys, don't worry about that, that's a specific use that I can gaurantee none of us will ever have to use, in all probability.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/25/2004 10:02:45 AM

It's still a empty motherboard, what will you use with it? Otherwise your pc isn't the "Alpha and the Omega" yet.

-- The Lancersreactor: where the screenshots are never blurry, and the spammers get publically kicked around.

The Lancersreactor FAQ
The use of signatures

just cos AoD posts it, doesn't mean he's got it, Wiz. He's gonna have to go cap in hand to his dad for it.

psst - I won't be bothering with PCI-Xpress until next year at the earliest myself. there really is no big rush; if you have a top-end P4 you've got enough slack in your system for the next couple of years I reckon. Don't be conned into parting with your cash, folks.

Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/25/2004 10:18:22 AM

The pic looks like it shows only 2 PCI slots. for me, one for modem, one sound, leaves none open for anything extra.

modem will go on CNR riser, sounds onboard now, as is LAN, as is Firewire; so what do you even need the PCI slots for (ok I use em because I hate onboard, but thats just me) life's getting easier for you, FD!

am i beginning to sound like Esq? i am aren't I? its cos Ive stopped smoking and started drinking ginger beer..

Edited by - Tawakalna on 6/25/2004 10:34:18 AM

similar to what Tawakalna said, all of this new stuff is great and all but I'd rather stick with good old AGP and DDR for the next couple of years. if I got a 3.4GHz P4, an AGP X800, and a gig of DDR400, I'd be happy for the next few years.

Taw, you have said EXACTLY what i was thinking
when i posted this, thanks

if a port is on board and it goes up, quits, dies, or is fried you are s.o.l. as in the mother board may fry to and there goes your money unless it's on warranty and you fry it on purpose
i'd sooner have four or five extra slots that i won't use than have to many onboard ports u.s.b. is fine onboard that and the tipical ports

Edited by - arton alpha on 6/25/2004 2:49:15 PM

Meh, old news. Still, there's a very good article up on THG if anyone want to find out more about LGA, etc. The important things to note are that DDR2 is faster, and consumes less power, PCI-Express is better than PCI, but games still aren't being written that can use the extra bandwidth, and the new LGA "sockets" are radically different because the pins are on the socket now, not on the CPU. There you go, Esky's quick guide to new technology .

No smoking and ginger beer, eh Taw? Why don't I believe you?

@Esky: Maybe you're becoming as paranoid as Taw.

"Violence is the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived."

I've always been paranoid Mee, but I think that Taw is slightly more paranoid than I .

the no-smoking (tobacco) part is true.

Hey, Aod, where did you find that motherboard?