Everyday uses of eSata?

mufcmark · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:22

I was looking at motherboards for sb and narrowed it down to two motherboards.

The only real difference between the two is one has two esata ports. What exactly are these used for in general use?

The other thing this has is V-Check Points

"The V-Check Points function provides power measurement pins for users to measure the CPU and RAM voltages with a multimeter."

For £26 is this worth these two features?

tigerblood · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:25

Is this the msi gd55 & gd65 motherboards you're looking at.

If so, im wondering too as i'm looking at building a gaming rig but don't want to pay for features i'll never use

PhillyDee · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:26

eSATA is external sata, useful if you use an external harddrive with eSATA connections. Otherwise, you can still use USB.
The power check, I wouldn't worry about. If you do not know what they are, you will not use them. Im pretty sure I wouldn't!

d_brennen · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:33

eSATA is a bit of a wet fish

mufcmark · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:43

Would the power check be useful when overclocking for checking voltages of the cpu and ram?

PhillyDee · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:45

It would, but would you ever do it? Unless you are benching, going for mximum extreme, ott overclocks, its really of minimum value. The BIOS itself will tell you the voltages if you care, and of course, is it worth the extra money to you?

mufcmark · 26 Mar 2011 at 16:56

This msi gd53 seems like really good value for £114 then. Apart from esata and the power check it has everything the gd65 has.

What are the differences between the gd53 and gd55?

Liquid · 26 Mar 2011 at 17:09

imo a complete waste of time for most,me included and chances are if you are questioning it, it isn't needed for you

I have a GD65 and have not used, and cannot be bothered with the voltage points............fluff as far as i'm concerned.

I do however think the GD65 is a class board, it's only letdown is the fact that it has 1 connection for front usb only, I would have liked 2 as many high performance cases have 4 or more usb at the front, but that's minor and the build quality is something else

olivier renault · 26 Mar 2011 at 18:55

If you gonna have an external HD bay to plug into your computer, USB3 will do the job.

cammy5477 · 26 Mar 2011 at 19:16

d_brennen said:
eSATA is a bit of a wet fish

why would that be?
i have a 4.5tb esata external and it transfers a constant 100-120mb sec when transfering from a mechanical hard drive and silly speeds from ssd...just because you dont have a use for it doesnt make it a wet fish.....

413x · 26 Mar 2011 at 19:42

d_brennen said:
eSATA is a bit of a wet fish

I won't buy one without it

As I understand it because there is no extra processing it is better than usb 3

RJC · 26 Mar 2011 at 20:00

I use mine for backing up my pc and connecting the odd hard drive.

cammy5477 · 26 Mar 2011 at 20:06

al4x said:
I won't buy one without it

As I understand it because there is no extra processing it is better than usb 3

this also^

its the same as having an internal hard drive on the outside....

what can be better than that?

Lunatic Dreyfus · 26 Mar 2011 at 20:08

I use the eSata ports on both of my PC's for backup and burning/installing CD's. Rather useful things, even if they do feel a bit legacy...

Energize · 27 Mar 2011 at 02:44

Never realised people used e-sata given NAS these days.