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

[Jason Boxman]

On Tuesday 10 November 2009 04:20:41 pm Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> 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.

Yeah, but the current 3Ware I'm using is for 3x300GB PATA RAID 5 for backups.  
I recently moved that array into the box to reduce my system count by 1 for 
space and reduced energy consumption.

> 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.  ;)

Where would I need to be to get those? ;)

> 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.

I thought so -- thinking about putting the board in the gaming box, although 
then I need to buy a real video card.  Current one is a 7600GS AGP.

> 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.

I had an old ECS mainboard, a 748 I think, with an ALC based chipset that had 
no hardware based mixer!  The volume was either on or off under Linux.  Very, 
very irritating.

> 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)

Ah, okay.  I don't know why I thought 1x PCIe slots could double as legacy 
PCI...

-- 

"Don't put it in your mouth." - Arctic Silver 5 Manual



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