PCI-X Mobo?

philjayj · 27 Mar 2006 at 22:11

Hi everyone, I have a couple of spare PCI-X hardware RAID cards, i'm thinking of making a file server or backup server (or both) and put them to some good use. But can you recommend some motherboards which have PCI-X, as many SATA connectors as you can find, and a board which uses a fairly modern CPU, maybe a single core Opteron or even an Intel chip. But the most important feature, it has to be cheap!!!

Thanks, P

mdjmcnally · 28 Mar 2006 at 19:20

Asus P5WDG2-WS Extreme Intel 975X (Socket LGA775) PCI-Express Motherboard

is only £200 inc VAT

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/asus_intel_motherboards.html

bottom motherboard.

I think you are going to struggle to find a modern board for less then this unless you can find one going secondhand.

jellybeard999 · 28 Mar 2006 at 20:36

the above is generally true, however you can find PCI-X in modern mobos...

only snag is theyre generally multi cpu server boards, costing up to £2000

http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8qw.html

my favourite

the above post's board seems youre best bet tbh... but its pricey

mdjmcnally · 28 Mar 2006 at 21:17

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/DualCore/955/PDSGE.cfm

might be an alternative, you can find elsewhere for £176.90, but it is not in stock. The Gigabyte GA4MXSV board can also be found for about the same price.

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Networking/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=1083

In general look for chipsets 7221 or 7230 based boards with 775 or 7210 for skt478

DoBie_Smalls · 29 Mar 2006 at 13:10

I'd go with the Gigabyte K8N Pro SLi nForce4 SLi, great motherboard, good solid manufactorer. It has SATA 2 connections and 4 SATA-II, 2 PCI-X x16 slots and two standard PCI-X slots. Plus you can fit a nice Opteron CPU to go with it

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Gigabyte_Socket_939.html#aMB_2d038_2dGI

King_Boru · 29 Mar 2006 at 13:49

DoBie_Smalls said:
I'd go with the Gigabyte K8N Pro SLi nForce4 SLi, great motherboard, good solid manufactorer. It has SATA 2 connections and 4 SATA-II, 2 PCI-X x16 slots and two standard PCI-X slots. Plus you can fit a nice Opteron CPU to go with it

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Gigabyte_Socket_939.html#aMB_2d038_2dGI

yeah but he needs to use PCI-X hardware RAID cards. Which isnt found on mainstream boards. Thats why they have posted the Tyan and Supermicro bards above. Suggest you read the first post

mdjmcnally · 30 Mar 2006 at 01:44

DoBie_Smalls said:
I'd go with the Gigabyte K8N Pro SLi nForce4 SLi, great motherboard, good solid manufactorer. It has SATA 2 connections and 4 SATA-II, 2 PCI-X x16 slots and two standard PCI-X slots. Plus you can fit a nice Opteron CPU to go with it

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Gigabyte_Socket_939.html#aMB_2d038_2dGI

Think you are confusing PCI-Express with PCI-X, they aren't the same. PCI-Express is referred to as PCI-E rather then X which is a server orientated expansion bus.

Not the first and certainly not the last to get confused with them.