Motherboards confusing me

smurfdude · Dec 9, 2007, 01:22 PM

I haven't upgraded my PC in years, so im behind with whats going on in the world of technology.

I've been looking for a good high end motherboard to go with my new 8800GT and Q6600, and im having problems with storage compatibility. They all seem to have ATA or SATA next to their storage specs, but I'm using 2 IDE hard drives. Does this mean Im forced to buy to SATA drives?

I was looking at these

Asus P5B Socket Lga775 Core 2 Duo Intel P965 Fsb1066 8gb Ddr2 Sata 300 Gigabit Lan 8chn Audio - Ebuyer
Asus P5B Motherboard - Cheap at Ebuyer!

Would these support my 2 IDE hard drives and a DVD drive?

Thanks

***temeteus82*** · Dec 9, 2007, 01:51 PM

Hi there and welcome to DriverHeaven!

Yeah the SATA and PATA are both IDE drives other uses Serial interface and the other parallel interface. I think that you driver are the older PATA version. And since that motherboard you selected supports only 2 PATA drivers I recommend you to get either your optical drive as SATA or then SATA harddrive.

cozumel · Dec 9, 2007, 02:39 PM

Take a look at this Asus P5K board. It offers all the same features and more. The architecture is more up-to-date and offers excellent value at £70.49 incl tax. It can accept two ATA drives which mean you HDD will fit.

smurfdude · Dec 9, 2007, 03:05 PM

Thats a nice board. The only downside is its crossfire, if it were SLI it would be perfect. Not that ill probably even use 2 cards any time soon, but if I did then i'd buy a second 8800gt

***temeteus82*** · Dec 9, 2007, 03:16 PM

Abit's IP35 is looking good on paper. And it only got one x16 PCI-E. But it to can only support 2 PATA drives.

***Veridian3*** · Dec 9, 2007, 03:19 PM

The motherboard you originally listed is pretty good. It wouldnt allow you to do SLI either though so its the same in that respect to the P5K. As mentioned above the best set-up for you would be

Use your 2 existing hard drives on the IDE connector and get a sata dvd drive. ( NEC Optiarc AD-7170S-0S 18x DVD±RW/DL/RAM Serial ATA Silver - OEM - Ebuyer ) £16 for that one and it should last you a long time.

**kris23** · Dec 9, 2007, 03:32 PM

ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP AiLifestyle Series P35 Socket 775 Socket eSATA 8 channel Audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

the P5K-E is the most recent, most powerful mainstream board.

also you can buy a SATA to IDE converter so you can power up your drives off SATA cables.

also, which models of drives do you have? depending on the model, i may recommend to upgrade to a much more recent model.

PangingJr · Dec 17, 2007, 05:24 AM

as for your original post, smurfdude.

it seems to me like you seem to worry about thing that you should not worry about.

today's motherboard have provided and included plenty of SATA connectors (not IDE connectors like before).

i don't think like you, obviously. i think hard drives are cheap enough these days?
i would buy some new internal SATA interface drives, and would still have those IDE drives in good use like an external hard drives for storing files, backing up data and OS.

Dyre Straits · Dec 17, 2007, 06:53 AM

I'm probably the worst when it comes to keeping my old HDDs whenever I upgrade.

As long as there's a PCI slot for an add-in card, I'm inclined to keep my old IDE/PATA HDDs and just keep on trucking.

Right now, for example, I have the following:

1 IDE/PATA DVD writer
1 SATA DVD writer
1 IDE/PATA HDD
4 SATA HDDs connected to the Motherboard
1 SATA removable HDD connected to a PCI addin card

If the motherboard has only one IDE connection and you need more, something like this will work:

Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, Digital Cameras and more!

Just make sure you have an adequate PSU to handle it all.