"Grouper" first look

[MaxT]

Where have they been spotted? Any in the good ole' U.S. of A? And what performance wise does the BT have over the DR. I'm not quite fimiliar with that perticular southbridge.

Those two have different designs. The BT will follow the ATI reference crossfire design, while the DR is Oscar Wu's design, similar to their new NF4 expert sli board.

Both use the same north and south bridges. I have no clue which one is better though, barely any info is available for these motherboards.

I got to a point where i'll buy the 1st one available, be it grouper, bt cf, rd, or even nf4 sli expert. I've decided to skip on CrossFire until the r580 comes out, but any of those boards would work for me.

[nn_step]

BT has yet to show up but the Regular CrossFire board can be preordered on Zipzoomfly...

[dnavarro]

Tony, any word on how well the DFI RDX200 Overclocks? This board sounds interesting but I don't see much info on it. I am hoping my OCZ TCCD clocks 300+ at 1T like on the DFI NF4. Thanks!

D

[Brock911]

Those two have different designs. The BT will follow the ATI reference crossfire design, while the DR is Oscar Wu's design, similar to their new NF4 expert sli board.

Both use the same north and south bridges. I have no clue which one is better though, barely any info is available for these motherboards.

I got to a point where i'll buy the 1st one available, be it grouper, bt cf, rd, or even nf4 sli expert. I've decided to skip on CrossFire until the r580 comes out, but any of those boards would work for me.

I was reading around and basically i found out that the southbridge on the DR has USB performace issues and something about no SATAII. I don't really understand the performance differences on the hard drives because of this but apprently for some people it's enough not to buy it since it doesn't support it. I'm getting a 16mb cache harddrive soon. I'm getting ready to built my new computer and all i'm doing is waiting for a CF motherboard. If anybody has any suggestions lemme know. Oh and i will be overclocking it.

[MaxT]

I was reading around and basically i found out that the southbridge on the DR has USB performace issues and something about no SATAII. I don't really understand the performance differences on the hard drives because of this but apprently for some people it's enough not to buy it since it doesn't support it. I'm getting a 16mb cache harddrive soon. I'm getting ready to built my new computer and all i'm doing is waiting for a CF motherboard. If anybody has any suggestions lemme know. Oh and i will be overclocking it.

Ok, but just so you know, the only board so far not to use the ATI south birdge is the Abit's AT8 (or whatever they call it). Both DFI boards, and all sapphire boards use/will use ATI's SB450.

As far as the issues go, well, SB450 doesn't support SATAII standard. However, that standard is mostly a marketing gimmick, it offers no performance improvements over SATAI. On top of that, most of the boards will come with an additional raid controller by sil or promise, that supports SATAII devices. Don't quote me on this, but in a case where you really have to, I think you can plug a SATAII hard drive into a SATAI port, and it will work just as fast without any issues.

As far as the USB performance goes - yes, it's a known problem with ATI south bridges. But the problem applies only to sustained speeds, meaning constant non-stop tranfering of information. ATI does it at like half the speed compared to the competitors. But they claim their burst speeds are similar to those of the competition. Meaning the information travels just as fast in small amounts. So, if you use a USB mouse/USB keyboard/USB Joystick, you shouldn;'t notice any difference at all. Where you would see the difference, would be if you used a USB hard drive, it would just be slower.

So the problems are not severe, it depends on wha hardware you will be using with your system.

[Brock911]

Ok, but just so you know, the only board so far not to use the ATI south birdge is the Abit's AT8 (or whatever they call it). Both DFI boards, and all sapphire boards use/will use ATI's SB450.

As far as the issues go, well, SB450 doesn't support SATAII standard. However, that standard is mostly a marketing gimmick, it offers no performance improvements over SATAI. On top of that, most of the boards will come with an additional raid controller by sil or promise, that supports SATAII devices. Don't quote me on this, but in a case where you really have to, I think you can plug a SATAII hard drive into a SATAI port, and it will work just as fast without any issues.

As far as the USB performance goes - yes, it's a known problem with ATI south bridges. But the problem applies only to sustained speeds, meaning constant non-stop tranfering of information. ATI does it at like half the speed compared to the competitors. But they claim their burst speeds are similar to those of the competition. Meaning the information travels just as fast in small amounts. So, if you use a USB mouse/USB keyboard/USB Joystick, you shouldn;'t notice any difference at all. Where you would see the difference, would be if you used a USB hard drive, it would just be slower.

So the problems are not severe, it depends on wha hardware you will be using with your system.

Thanks. I appreciate the information. Here is the hard drive i'm getting:

Maxtor (6B250S0) DiamondMax Plus 10 250GB SATA 7200 RPM 16MB Cache
# Serial interfaces
# Second-generation Serial ATA with 1.5Gb/sec interface speed
# Native command queuing
# 16MB cache buffer
# Fluid dynamic bearing motor for quiet operation
# Shock Protection System™
# Data Protection System™

How would it run on this mobo? You seem pretty knowledgeable so i'll probably take your advice on which one to get. It's between the Abit AT8 and the DR. Also, here is my system that i plan on building, do you have any suggestions?

Crossfire Mobo (Abit or DFI)
AMD X2 4400+
DiamondMax Plus 10 250GB
Mushkin Red Line 1gb 2-2-2-5 Latency
Thermaltake VA8000
XP-90 With Panaflo 68cfm with 46db
Hopefully an x1800XT or XL if they ever appear on market for less

[MaxT]

Nice setup

That is indeed a SATAII hard drive, but like i said, i am fairly sure you can use SATAII hard drives with SATAI chipsets. Plus these boards have an extra controller that supports SATAII anyway, so you'll be fine, you'll just have ot figure out which of the SATA ports to plug it into.

As far as Abit vs DFI goes, both have their cons and pros. I used to be a huge abit fan, but lately, their motherboards don't appeal to me anymore. I don't like the AT8 design at all. The DFI board has a much better design, but it seems to have weird RAM slots placement, some people argue it might get hit by the heat coming from the CPU.

Personally, I would either go for the DFI RDX200 or Sapphire Halibut (ati reference CrossFire board, if it ever comes out). But, if you can wait an extra month, DFI will be releasing BT-CF, it will be based on ATI reference design, but supposably even better than that.

I'd probably prefer BT-CF out of all of these, but i don't think i can wait that long. I'll probably skip CrossFire alltogether and just get the regular Sapphire grouper (non CF) board.

Whichever one you pick, i am sure your setup will rock

[Brock911]

Nice setup

That is indeed a SATAII hard drive, but like i said, i am fairly sure you can use SATAII hard drives with SATAI chipsets. Plus these boards have an extra controller that supports SATAII anyway, so you'll be fine, you'll just have ot figure out which of the SATA ports to plug it into.

So it does support SATAII speed or just SATA? Thanks, i hope it turns out well. I'm just a po college student, but i've been saving for a while and between school and my '67 mustang it's taken a while to save a couple grand. But hopefully in the next couple weeks they will friggin release them so i can actually have the products in hand instead of on paper.

[MaxT]

So it does support SATAII speed or just SATA? Thanks, i hope it turns out well. I'm just a po college student, but i've been saving for a while and between school and my '67 mustang it's taken a while to save a couple grand. But hopefully in the next couple weeks they will friggin release them so i can actually have the products in hand instead of on paper.

sataII speeds are theoretical. I believe they bumped it up to 300MB/sec while the regular sata is 150. But none of the sataII harddrives outthere can even come close to 150. So the speed is not the issue. Usually when standards change, the connectors also change, but in this case, SATAII adds a few features, but keeps the same connectors as SATAI, so backwards compatibility is maintained. So yo shold have no problems using your Maxtor drive with the SB450 south bridge on ATI CF boards. But in case you encounter problems, these boards will also have an external controller that supports official SATAII specs, so if you have any problems, you can use that instead of the SB450. Basically, it'll shoudl work fine no matter where you plug it in.

As far as availability goes, heh, i was supposed to have my PC done by the end of July. I hate delays.

[RGone]

I should have RDX200 CF-DR shipping and receive on maybe Wed or Thurs of this week coming today being Sun my time. Experts after that by some amount it seems and LP UT CF-BT after that by a little. That actually is the best I can nail down anything that is 'real' at this time.

RGone...

[Brock911]

I should have RDX200 CF-DR shipping and receive on maybe Wed or Thurs of this week coming today being Sun my time. Experts after that by some amount it seems and LP UT CF-BT after that by a little. That actually is the best I can nail down anything that is 'real' at this time.

RGone...

Lemme know if you get some in. Also, do you have any preliminary pricing ideas? Is it really going to be close to $300 like some places have it listed for? Geez i hope not. Also, can anybody reccomend the maximum temp. i chould run my X2 4400+ since i plan on overclocking it?

[Revv23]

describe maximum temp please?

you planning on cooking it? i prefer medium well please.

[Brock911]

I dunno what the safe rang would be. I would assume not over 65 degrees C. I want to overclock each core 500mhz probably

[tomati]

@ Brock911

there is an app that will tell you what temp you can reach with yours cpu

A64MaxTemp

[ukveld]

Sapphire anounced the card today and says it's available now...

SAPPHIRE ON TARGET WITH GAMING MAINBOARDS
Oct 10th, 2005-Sapphire Technology has just announced Pure Innovation - a high end product developed for gamers and PC enthusiasts who want to get the maximum enjoyment from their AMD Athlon64TM or FX systems using the latest hardware and performance tuning options. ...read full press release

http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/media...iew.php?pid=23
direct link to the press release:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/pressfiles/19_reg1.doc

[Revv23]

I dunno what the safe rang would be. I would assume not over 65 degrees C. I want to overclock each core 500mhz probably

not trying to be an ass, but PLEASE do more research before you do any sort of overclocking, you dont want to kill your precious new toy, and you clearly dont have the slightest clue on overclocking. no offense, stick around here and you will learn from the best, but youve got alot more reading to do before you are ready

[eva2000]

sataII speeds are theoretical. I believe they bumped it up to 300MB/sec while the regular sata is 150. But none of the sataII harddrives outthere can even come close to 150.

i wish the ATI boards had 4x SATAII ports

why ? because







Pcmark04 hdd vs Pcmark05 hdd

[tictac]

i wish the ATI boards had 4x SATAII ports

why ? because







Pcmark04 hdd vs Pcmark05 hdd

ULI 1575 Southbridge aint that far compare to that nVidia SATAII

ULI 1575 vs nVidia nF4 SLI SATA II

[eva2000]

would still be slower when 4x SATAII drive raid 0 is used though

[tictac]

would still be slower when 4x SATAII drive raid 0 is used though

Agreed...
but with only 8% CPU Utilization...smile

[eva2000]

interesting do you know of any hdtune 2.5 benchmark results http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=1463 ?

here's 2x 7K80 SATAII on NF4 http://i4memory.com/showthread.php?t=1189



only 2% more @10% cpu utilisation

and same guy redoing test with 5%



on dual core cpu only 4%



POST #98 has VEG with 0% LOL

ATI board with 4x SATAII would be nice

[Brock911]

not trying to be an ass, but PLEASE do more research before you do any sort of overclocking, you dont want to kill your precious new toy, and you clearly dont have the slightest clue on overclocking. no offense, stick around here and you will learn from the best, but youve got alot more reading to do before you are ready

Sorry for being an annoyance. I only ask because i don't know. I've pretty much taken a two week crash course on every single piece of computer hardware and how they are built. Hopefully i can learn from you guys.

[MaxT]

eva, those are raid results though Even with 4 drives you are not limited to 150MB per sec with SATA, it's a limit per each individual channel (and the bus the controller is on).

As far as CPU utilization goes, I honestly don't know if SATA2 is supposed to be better (raid or not) by design. My guess it's all about the efficiency of the design and the implementation of the controller (be it SATA or SATA2), shouldn't really be any differences between those two. But i'm just guessing here.

Oh, and those Hitachi drives rock!

[Revv23]

Sorry for being an annoyance. I only ask because i don't know. I've pretty much taken a two week crash course on every single piece of computer hardware and how they are built. Hopefully i can learn from you guys.

questions are great, though you are porbably better off asking about the max stable temp of a64's in an a64 overclocking thread, keep reading, keep clocking, and have fun.

heres a late welcome to XS

on that note, im dont posting OT for a while, sorry all.

[Afterburner]

Tony, any updates on retail Groupers as to what Caps that are utilising etc etc.......