Should i have ordered another motherboard?
 

Hi there, i am just looking for some advice and an opinion.

its been a 7 month HASSLE with my first build pc, and im not complaining because its been a great learning experience, but this fourth time ive returned my DOA mobo, they stopped carrying it. the motherboad was giving inaccurate beep codes like telling me that the ram was bad so i would send that back, and another time inadequate PS, all to find out just another bad mobo. anyway... i will get on with the question

once i tried to RMA this mobo with newegg they told me to pick a new one and i was quite happy with the one i found, so i chose that. it came to my attention a few days later that i forgot to look if it supports RAID of any sorts, which i was hoping to do sometime soon, and when i looked at neweggs motherboard deals today, there was one with the same price, and better specs (lots of raid support, and able to have twice the ram.) i have not recieved the motherboard in the mail yet so once i recieve it im pretty sure i could still return it and get this one.

here is the one i got:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138059

here is te one im looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138074

my other question was that is their a chance it still supports raid in the bios and they just didnt list it in the specs, or is it still possible to set it up through software instead of through the motherboard settings? or is a motherboard completely incapable if raid is not listed...?

Thanks for your help and opinions

-answerth

EDIT: also, i have discovered that you can actually get a RAID pci card so im not at a total loss, but 8gb of ram might be better in the long run; the other mobo supports 8 vs. 4, because in 3 years im sure people will be exceeding 4gb.

Instead of sending back the board just buy a pci slot card that will give raid support.

ok but there is always the 4gb more of ram support...

If you were to move to 8GB RAM, Then I'm sure would be running a Quad core to actually utilize that much, and Vista x64.

You won't get 4GB or more on a 32bit system, You need 64bit. And 4GB on a x64 OS is alot (Vista x64 / XP x64). It should be enough for the mean time, Until more demanding games and programs come out. They will be cheap as if you want to upgrade the mobo in the future so no biggy.

Also, Most Nvidia chipsets from nForce 2 have onboard RAID. I'm sure the 570 should, Maybe just not included in the specs for some odd reason.

i found something interesting when i went to biostars' site to look at my motherboard. under their specs it can handle 8 gb of ram, but they dont mention RAID

also, under SLI it said: 2 x PCI-E x16 Slots (SLI x8)
does that mean it will run 2 expressx8 cards and not 2 x16 cards? confused me

http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en-us/...t.php?S_ID=181

It will run x16 cards. Just in SLI mode, They both share the same bandwidth, So each slot only runs at 8x. It is really no difference if you had both at 16x, nothing needs that much bandwidth.

oh ok that makes sense, but isnt 2 of the same cards at half speed the same as 1 card at full? i guess with sli i could have 4 screens, because each card can have 2.

i suppose i will have to wait and read the handbook if it handles 4 or 8 gb of ram. not that i will need any more then 4 for now, but in a few years i might buy 2 X 2gb sticks, to make 6gb total. either way i think it will be fine.

i will look into raid cards once i recieve the mobo and im sure it doesnt support it.

Nope. You can actually check out benchmarks of boards that use 8x SLI, and compare to 16x SLI. Such as the Asus A8N32 SLI Deluxe, vs a A8N SLI deluxe. One uses a dual 16x, the other is only dual 8x. Difference is Very minimal. You still get the power of 2 GPU's, Twice the memory, just the card to controllers bandwidth isn't as "wide", but there is not much need for the extra bandwidth anyways.

Make sure you have a 64bit OS.

is 64 bit actually necessary? is it higher graphics or just run differently with more resource hogging? are most vista versions 64 bit? my cpu is 64 bit compatible so thats good.

64bit is necessary to read more than 3.25GB RAM. A 32bit OS cannot read anymore than about 3.25GB. You need a 64bit OS, So that your CPU runs in a 64bit environment and can detect up to 128GB RAM.

The only difference is that it takes advantage of your processors 64bit capabilities. It will only benefit using 64bit programs, designed to be 64bit. Everything else runs the same. Except some drivers are hard to find for 64bit OS.

Vista has both 32bit and 64bit versions. Some vendors refuse to create 64bit drivers for older hardware, so it doesn't support much older hardware.

ok cool, thanks for the info. i will recieve my motherboard tomorrow so i will post back to let you know how it runs.

Ok cool. I hope you remember how to install it properly :p