[Leaplist] AMD 45W processor w/fansink + nVidia MCP51 mainboard for $77 shipped - $15 MIR ...

[Bryan J. Smith]

Yes, I just used the last of those sub-$4 (after rebate) sticks in
some Dell OptiPlex 745 systems I bought for $100 (long story).


As far as your 2 legacy PATA drives, consider eBay for a $10
3ware 700[06]-2LP.  I wouldn't bother with any other PATA card.

Although if you want a *FREE* pair of 80GB SATA drives, let
me know.  I'm ripping out four (4) of them (3.5") from those OptiPlex
745 systems.  ;)

As far as dual-head, yes, the NV44-MCP51 supports dual-head
as long as there are one analog (mini-DB15 VGA) and one digital
(DVI).  Only one analog RAMDAC is supported meaning any DVI
would be DVI-D only (not DVI-I with DVI-A) as the RAMDAC would
be used by the other, analog (mini-DB15) port.  Unfortunately it
seems this board only has analog out, no digital (at least on the
NewEgg pages), so you'd need to add a card.

Of course, you can find sub-$10 PCIe video cards with dual
RAMDACs and a mini-DB15 and DVI-I, so a DVI-A->mini-DB15
converter would work.  Virtually all of them would blow away an
old Ti4200 AGP.  Even the GeForce 7200s are $20 new, and
I've regularly seen the 8400-8500 cards for $15 after rebate.
Heck, even the GeForce 210 is dropping to under $30 after
rebate, now that most of the low-end 7000-9000 series stock has
been removed from the shelf.

There is always the option to use a PCI card for a second head,
with the on-board GPU for the primary head.

As far as audio cards, PCI ones are $10 or less.  Many are
Linux compatible.  The ALC662 should suffice for basics.

PCI != PCI-Express (PCIe).  They are completely different.
PCIe is serialized I/O, one (1) to sixteen (16) channels.
There are three (3) slots on this board ...
- PCIe x16 (video card usage will disable on-board GPU)
- (2) PCI (yes, old 32-bit, 5V)



----- Original Message ----
From: Jason Boxman <jasonb at edseek.com>

That's a great deal for those of us who also went into the 1GBx5 DDR2 memory deal for the HP sticks.  I still have 3 of them unused.  At $4/ea it was impossible to beat that deal!

I could replace my existing Biostar socket 754 board which still has a Sempron 2800.  (32-bit afaict.)  Tempting.

However, I still have 2 legacy PATA drives I'm running in RAID 1 on the box, plus an ATAPI DVD-RW.  Also, I am still using a nice TI-4200 4x AGP for dual head.

Does the 6150 support dual head?

I suppose I could pick up a cheap, used dumb ATA card -- although PCIe is a new world for me.  Do I need a PCIe PATA card or will a legacy PCI card work in a PCI 1x slot?

Ugghh.  I just remembered, I put my 64-bit 33MHz 3Ware 7810 on this box.  Would that work on this mainboard?  That's 2 of 2 PCIe 1x slots used, assuming I can use legacy PCI in those slots.  I hope I don't need anymore...

If the ALC662 audio sucks, I won't have a slot for my old legacy SB card.  Oops.

I guess this board _is_ MicroATX, so it's supposed to be a small footprint.  Maybe the next deal...

And it just dawned on me that I can't keep using my Ti4200 for dual head on newer systems anymore.  That's sad, too.



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