Comments

dvdude wrote on 6/25/2003, 7:05 PM
I thought about this quite a bit before I built my system. I already had the Pyro card from a previous build. I've heard people are using on-board 1394 without problems. In the end, I opted for a motherboard without on-board 1394 for three reasons:

1) I already had the pyro card!
2) The pyro card has been entirely successful
3) The Mobo I was interested in had other features I wanted (like a flash reader that sits in a 3 1/2" bay, on-board parallel RAID and it's using a CMI sound chipset).

The real clincher was on board ATA RAID. I don't use it as a RAID array (that's not necessary these days) but I do use it to provide two more primary IDE channels. With 3 drives, my system is set-up to reduce head movement during video work to the absolute bare minimum, taking clips from one drive and rendering to another with the system/pagefile on yet another spindle.

Just my .02

Andy
starixiom wrote on 6/25/2003, 7:31 PM
In the scenario you presented i would go with Option#1. My very first computer years ago had built in everything with only 1 pci and 1 isa for expansion. Ive had nothing but problems with it and since then ive made a promise to myself that i wouldnt try to buy a mobo with "all the features"

I like boards that dont have built in Video, Firewire, RAID, or SOundcards. My recent mobo has a built in Intel Pro Lan and Soundblaster 128. I bought it because those were the components that were going to go into it anyway. So it does depend on how much you want to be locked into your mobo.

To me option #1 sounds like your best bet.

Ros wrote on 6/25/2003, 10:16 PM
I would go for option #2

I have an ASUS P4PE motherboard with firewire onboard, just as reliable as my other ASUS Terminator P4 barebone system ( my portable unit ) with a seperate firewire card. Having firewire onboard with other accessories including RAID was only $17.00 extra for my P4PE board.

As far as having everything built-in into the system doesn't worry me at all, my Asus Terminator with everything built-in except firewire, as gone through so much. It has 280 gigs, I have done several editing sessions with over 12 hours of video on the timeline. I have also shot some concerts, where one camera would not record to tape, but right onto the harddrive using Vegas, since a tape can only hold an hour, a harddrive can go way over that without having to interrupt the shoot, and no dropframes!

ASUS is reliable.
XOG wrote on 6/26/2003, 8:53 AM
Thanks everybody!

XOG
jboy wrote on 6/26/2003, 2:15 PM
Re: onboard goodies, dont forget the nice feeling you get when you open your computer and find 5-6 empty PCI slots-expansion city!
kentwolf wrote on 6/26/2003, 10:56 PM
>>As far as having everything built-in into the system doesn't worry me at all...

I know that computers pre-fabed by companies like Compaq, HP, etc, these often have issues with "everything built on the board."

If you get a seperate (reputable) motherboard (Soyo, Asus, Abit, etc.) that has all of the features, I have not seen where you really need to change them (the components). As long as you can change your video card, all of the other stuff is pretty generic. Plus, with on-board features, there is usually a jumper to disable the on-board whatever, then you have all of your PCI slots free and can add whatever you want.

It *is* a nice feeling to have your case all decked out with all the options you need/want, then open it up and see tons of free space... :)

Not that you'll use it...but you could... if you wanted to... :)