Mobo's...out of touch

[Triad-X]

Hello everyone,

I've found myself thinking of upgrading my computer sometime in the near future and so, been making some comparisons with my own computer's components with benchmarks (CPU/Gfx Cards) from http://tomshardware.co.uk . Now, this is where I've not really followed technological advances lately, but from what motherboards I've seen, they don't have many IDE slots. Seeing as my rig is fairly old...some components being almost 2 years of age, CD/DVD-Writers and majority of my Hard Drives are IDE. I'm wondering why IDE is scarce now.

Am thinking of upgrading my CPU and GFX Card (GeForce 7900 GS or 7600 GT & Intel Pentium 4 820 Dual Core)...seemingly both good value for money atm...but still need to figure out what to do with my IDE devices if there ain't many IDE slots

Any help is very much appreciated to satisfy my own curiousity

--

Operating System: Windows XP
Monitor: LG FLATRON L1915S
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo-FIS2R SKT 754 K8T800
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 Processor 2800+, 1.80 GHz, L1: 64KB L2: 512KB
RAM: GeIL 1.5GB (3x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5
Graphics Card: PNY Verto GeForce 6 6600GT AGP8x 128MB GDDR3
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2
PSU: Antec PSU True Blue 480w Blue Led Fan
CD-Writer #1: NEC ND3500 Double Layer Dual 16x DVD R/RW - Oem Silver
CD-Writer #2: Uranus (Rebranded Lite-on) CD-ReWriter 52x32x52x
Hard Drive #1: UDMA Western Digital 7200RPM 160Gb 8Mb Cache
Hard Drive #2: UDMA Western Digital 7200RPM 120Gb 2Mb Cache
Hard Drive #3: Maxtor L14M200 Diamondmax 200GB 7200RPM SATA/150 8MB Cache

 

[BENdage]

You'd probably want to upgrade to core 2 rather than dual core P4 IMO, core 2 is so much quicker and should run cooler, much more future proof.

As for the IDE drive problem, you have 2 options the way I see it, you could sell them and replace with up to date sata models that will prob be bigger and definitely be much quicker and just use IDE optical drives. OR buy a PCI raid card to hook some of your drives up to, its not a great solution but it'd work.

 

[Dureth]

You only have 4 IDE drives and there are plenty of motherboards out there with 2 IDE slots on them (both of which take 2 devices on a single cable, the same as you have now).

As suggested above if at all possible try and stretch to a Core2 Duo as it will be orders of magnitude better.

 

[Snapshot]

SATA is the current connection method, replacing IDE. It's potentially faster and the wiring is much neater. Asking 'why' is like asking why PCI replaced ISA.

I agree with Bendage - go for Core 2 Duo rather than the 820. I've got both here and the cheapest C2D is well ahead of the 820 and is much cooler running.

Jonathan