Help wth picking NF4 SLi mobo

[Oalex]

HI,

I will be changing my system soon and would like your help with picking the right mobo NF4 with sli.

most important is that I have 2x 76gb rapotors with i would like to raid and run OS from (which if I run into more cash might make up to 4. All other hard drives would be on the other 4 sata drive (some of which i requiere to hot swap). PATA would be filled up with DVD-RW.

If I am correct then Abit is out of the question as it only has the stock 4 NF4 sata and doesnt have the plus 4 silicon sata.

Out of the rest available which would be my best choice (oc is secondery, stability and husle free running is primary objective). I hear the some have problems, with os on sata, espcially if raided. Also which sata should I install the raided raptors on to run the OS (which is the betters NF4 or silicon). and will the other do hotswap?

last question, as I havent upgraded it a while, how good are the stock (built-in) sound cards on these mobo's, can I ditch the Audigy 2 that I currently have or is it still better than the built-in.

thanks.

 

[Vyruz]

I have the asus A8N sli premium ,and am very happy about it
i have 2 WD 74GB raptors on raid0
and 2 maxtors daimondmax 9+ 120GB on raid1 (to make sure i don't loose important data)

I can only recommend this board (had no flaws in about 2 months of usage)
there are only 2 things to keep in mind:
1.if you have a 2nd SLI graphic card that has the NV5silencer cooler(big ass cooler that takes up 2nd slot) it will push against the SATA connectors, i'm still trying to find a solution for this
2.if you have and upside-down case (like the lian-li models) the passive chipset cooler won't work, because it made to radiate heat through the heatpipe to the upper side of there motherboard, where the heatsink is located, if you turn the motherboard upside-down, this system will not work and you'll have to look out for another (probably a fan) chipset cooler

 

[Oalex]

Thx, I will not have an upside down case.

And I dont have the second VGA yet, so I'll pay attention to that when buying.


So thats on vote to the Asus. Maybe I'll go with that

How are tha HDs connected, I mean which HDD to which port SATA port? Do you have the raptors on the NF or the sil port? Do you have any info about the hotswap thing for my other 2 mobos?

What about this Sata port lock thing (that some are locked and some are not), I just saw it mentioned, but have not the faintest idea what it is or if its good or bad. Could you brief me plz?.

 

[Oalex]

Originally posted by: Oalex
Thx, I will not have an upside down case.

And I dont have the second VGA yet, so I'll pay attention to that when buying.


So thats on vote to the Asus. Maybe I'll go with that

How are tha HDs connected, I mean which HDD to which port SATA port? Do you have the raptors on the NF or the sil port? Do you have any info about the hotswap thing for my other 2 mobos?

What about this Sata port lock thing (that some are locked and some are not), I just saw it mentioned, but have not the faintest idea what it is or if its good or bad. Could you brief me plz?.

still waiting for info on this??

 

[orion23]

The nvidia controller is better than the silicon controller, you should plug the raptors to that 1.

I also used to have an audigy with my older motherboard, but I stopped using it with the a8n-sli premium. I find this boards to have great onboard sound.

The asus is 1 of the few boards that will support 8 SATA drives. If you are not going to use RAID for the sillicon controller, you need to use the windows IDE driver from the sillicon website for this particular controller, then provided during the windows setup F6 option

 

[Oalex]

THX MATE

and what about the port lock thingy? should I use 1 & 2 or 3 & 4 on the NF sata