pci-x motherboards

johnnyboy32

johnnyboy32

johnnyboy32

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31 Dec 2005
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Am I correct in thinking that the only pci-x motherboards are xeon server boards or the odd pentium? I was thinking of an AMD chip and board but I am going to run a U320 10000rpm hitatchi scsi through a LSI Logic LSI21320-R Ultra320 adapter and would obviously like to use the fastest interface I can (pci-x I believe).
 
No there are others out there. What and where ? AMD wise they are socket 940, mainly from Tyan. Intel there is socket 478, 604, 775 boards out there.
The Supermicro P4SCT+ is a socket 478 board
The Supermicro PDSME is 775
 
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Asus P5WDG2-WS S775 i975X is an 775 skt P4 board with PCI-X. AMD wise at the moment you are looking at s940 boards. ie proper s940 opteron server boards from Tyan or Supermicro.

There are PCI-E SCSI boards LSI MegaRAID SCSI 320-2E out there but again at the moment they need s940 boardsto make full use. The Asus SLi boards will run the second PCI-E x16 slot in x1 mode if not in SLI mode but will accept an x8 card physically.
 
Non that I know of. PCI-X is a server targetted slot so unlikely to appear on 939 which is desktop market skt. The s939 Opterons are level entry server which seem to be SATA based these days.

I take it that you already have the SCSI card.
 
I was given a brand new 73 Gig 10000rpm hitatchi U320 scsi drive and to take advantage of this I considered buying a server motherboard with onboard scsi. After a bit of investigation i found that the general concensus is that much better results can be obtained using a dedicated,correctly setup scsi host adapter. The card I have my eye on (LSI Logic LSI21320-R Ultra320) supports pci-x so that is the direction I am hoping to take. Unfortunatley most Server motherboards require ECC ram (more expense) and may require a different power supply. A colleague has offered me a free Xeon chip (i'm not sure of the exact spec yet) but of the advice I got on the CPU board was to go down the AMD route. I'm undecided now and any advice would be greatley appreaciated.
 
In that case it's an Opteron socket 940 board you will need. Supermicro and Tyan are the manufacturers to look at. Only you really know what you exact needs will be just check thier sites.
 
Yes, the new one are not cheap. But there are older cores out there at reasonable amount. What you need to remember is that you are paying for industry levels of reliability and so forth. I would tell you where to search but i'm not sure if the site is a no no as it may be considered a rival, although it only lists sites that sell the products and doesn't sell anything itself.
 
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If you don't already own the scsi card then look at the LSI MegaRAID SCSI 320-2E card. This is a PCI-E x8 card. It will however fit into the Universal slot on boards like the Asus A8N-E if not going SLI or the Asus A8N-SLI Premium if going SLI. The DFI NF4 boards also have suitable expansion slots. In that way you can use the SCSI disk properly as those slots will still transfer at upto 1Gbps. Those boards also happen to very good boards anyway.

You can also still use an skt939 processor and non-registered memory then, rather then forking out for a skt940 and registered memory. If you still want to go PCI-X and skt940, then skt940's online now all seem to be 200 series or 800 series which are a bit pricier then the s939 processors.
 
I use a Tyan K8WE. These come with or without SCSI. On board SCSI is quicker than using PCI-X as it is on a direct bus from the Nforce4 pro chipset.
Older stepping chips on CG are falling in price. 244 @ £130. The new dual core steppers (E6) are very expensive, as is ECC REG ram (upto 16Gb) and SCSI drives (upto 30). The amount of connections these boards have will leave you skint for years to come.
 
dual2max said:
I use a Tyan K8WE. These come with or without SCSI. On board SCSI is quicker than using PCI-X as it is on a direct bus from the Nforce4 pro chipset.
Older stepping chips on CG are falling in price. 244 @ £130. The new dual core steppers (E6) are very expensive, as is ECC REG ram (upto 16Gb) and SCSI drives (upto 30). The amount of connections these boards have will leave you skint for years to come.
Click to expand...

Apologies for being pedantic but the onboard SCSI on that board sits on the PCI-X bus and goes through an AMD 8131 PCI-X/Hypertransport Tunnel to communicate with the nForce4 chipset.

Below taken from the Tyan K8WE spec sheet.
Integrated SCSI Controller (option)
• LSI 53C1030 U320 SCSI controller
- Two U320 68-pin SCSI connectors
- Connected to PCI-X Bridge B

PCI-X bus shared with slots 4 and 5 on the motherboard.

It isn't going to be any slower then plugging in a board but it doesn't have a direct bus connection.
 
mdjmcnally said:
Apologies for being pedantic, it isn't going to be any slower then plugging in a board but it doesn't have a direct bus connection.
Click to expand...

Your not, i'm wrong, what can I say!!!!!

should have checked before moving my fingers. PCI via LSI. PFC
 
mdjmcnally said:
Apologies for being pedantic but the onboard SCSI on that board sits on the PCI-X bus and goes through an AMD 8131 PCI-X/Hypertransport Tunnel to communicate with the nForce4 chipset.

Below taken from the Tyan K8WE spec sheet.
Integrated SCSI Controller (option)
• LSI 53C1030 U320 SCSI controller
- Two U320 68-pin SCSI connectors
- Connected to PCI-X Bridge B

PCI-X bus shared with slots 4 and 5 on the motherboard.

It isn't going to be any slower then plugging in a board but it doesn't have a direct bus connection.
Click to expand...

mdjmcnally or anyone else - what controller card would you recommend to get the most from the following (NOT going to be running raid so a card without raid will do fine):

Asus A8n-sli (Standard)
U320-10000RPM drive

Will something like the following be suitable:-
http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/pr...Technology/SCSI/Ultra160+SCSI+PCI+HBAs+&+RAID

Adaptec 39160?

???
 
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