forget ddr

[IntelConvert]

Steve~ when you said: <<...around $300-$350 more for a 266MHz DDR-RAM based system INITIALLY (over let's say an A7V133 with Corsair PC133 CAS2 RAM) for a fairly good improvement in performance. In as little as 2 months, this should become much more competitive, let's say $150-$250 more. Now you just have to ask yourself, "Is it worth it TO ME?">>, you could not have been comparing a DDR SCSI system to an SDR IDE (KT133A) system, right? Heck, the SCSI devices (HDs and CD-RW's) alone would make more of a difference than that.

Also, since there seems to be a lot of interest in the K7Master-S, I think you should caution those (without prior SCSI experience) who might otherwise attempt to build their own SCSI system, that it's far more complicated than an IDE system and best left to those who know how!

 

[Booky]

Thats the wrong MB, look again

Someday I will stop asking all the questions!

 

[stable]

Sorry about the confusion.. In my post I meant using IDE components NOT SCSI components. I was touting the advantages of the K7Master-S option of the question regarding the K7Master. Either board in my opinion is better than competing boards from Iwill and others discussed above. The thought at the time was to leave the SCSI for future expansion capabilities as the arguments above were asking if HAVING the SCSI was worth it. In my mind, with that issue in mind, the SCSI is worth it if your intent is just to have it onboard and ready to use at a future date OR if you are going to run SCSI devices for faster performance on day 1. Yes, it will cost CONSIDERABLY MORE than IDE, but nothing good is cheap and for that matter, those devices would cost you the same regardless of what board you attach them to. So, my argument about price differences between DDR-RAM based systems with SCSI and Non-DDR systems without it still applies.

As for building with all SCSI devices (less of course an IDE CD-ROM drive) I still believe that this system would be cheaper than using THOSE SAME DEVICES with a board that you have to ADD the SCSI card to. Additionally, this board would perform better than an add-in 32-bit SCSI card. As for SCSI devices being complicated... I would say that yes, SCSI is a tad more tedious than IDE (as you have to set individual interrupts for devices in the chain and manage a SCSI BIOS, however, the documentation and procedures for this have really become better. I think if you have the gusto to build your system from scratch, you should be capable of configuring SCSI.... But that's just my opinion.

Steve Benoit


Stable Technologies
'The way IT should be!'