Count me in for a VRM (unless someone else locates a cheap source
first).
As for Compaq motherboards including on-board "everything". I can't
comment on this one (I don't have it yet), but the real issue
with on-board everything only occurs if you can't disable
the on-board features to include your own card. This board
has 6 PCI slots AND a dedicated 7th ISA slot. I think one of
the PCI slots is used in the base configuration. That leaves
you 5 PCI slots and 1 ISA. Put your favorite sound card in one
PCI slot, your PCI video card in the second, your modem (if you
use one) in the third. The on-board Ethernet will be perfectly
fine, so no need to disable/replace that. And you've got on-board
SCSI, so no need for the SCSI card. What's the problem? None, as long
as the BIOS lets you disable the on-board video and sound (if sound
is on-board; the discription doesn't make this clear).
Oh, and as an aside, yes, this board doesn't have an AGP slot.
But it has 64 bit / 66 Mhz PCI slots. IF (and that is a big IF) you
were willing to spring for a professional video card that takes
advantage of such a slot, you'd have AGP challenging performance
on the PCI bus. But of course, most people here are not gonna
pop the thousand (or whatever) dollars it'll cost to get a graphics
card that takes advantage of the 64 bit slots. (If anyone knows
of a cheap video card that uses them fully, let me know; I don't
know of one).
Kwad
Kwad
Kwad