Re: Motherboard with many SATA ports: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum ?

[Chris DiVirgilio <divirg@umich.edu>]

On Nov 28, 2005, at 4:14 PM, Lennart Sorensen wrote:

> On Mon, Nov 28, 2005 at 08:28:31PM +0100, Andre Majorel wrote:
> > Sorry, yet another motherboard question.
> >
> > Looking for a socket 939 motherboard with a comfortable number of
> > SATA ports (at least 6, preferably 8). The application is software
> > RAID.
> >
> > Here's what I've found so far :
> >
> >                           NB   PCI SATA ports______   
> > Ethernet______________
> > Asus a8n-sli deluxe       nf4s  3  4(nf4) + 4(3114)  g(nf)      + g 
> > (marvel)
> > Asus a8n-sli premium      nf4s  3  4(nf4) + 4(3114)  g(nf)      + g 
> > (marvel)
> > Gigabyte ga-k8n ultra-9   nf4u  3  4(nf4) + 4(3114)  g(marvel)  + g 
> > (cicada)
> > Gigabyte ga-k8nxp-9       nf4u  3  4(nf4) + 4(3114)  g(nf)      + g 
> > (marvel)
> > MSI k8n diamond           nf4s  3  4(nf4) + 2(3132)  g(nf4s)    + g 
> > (88e8053)
> > MSI k8n diamond 54g       nf4      4(nf4) + 2(sil)   g(nf4)     + g 
> > (marvel)
> > MSI k8n neo4 platinum     nf4u  4  4(nf4) + 4(3114)  g(88e1111) + g 
> > (88e8053)
> > MSI k8n neo4 platinum sli nf3      4(nf3) + 2(sil)
> > MSI k8n sli-fi            nf4s     4(nf4) + 2(sil?)  g(marvel)
> >
> > I'm not too hot for Gigabyte due to past experience with BIOS
> > updates, or lack thereof. The Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium and
> > MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum look good. The A8N-SLI Deluxe/Premium
> > support SLI, which I have no use for, at the expense of a PCI
> > slot. They're also more expensive than the K8N Neo4 Platinum.
>
> Hmm, does anyone know if you can stick a 4x or 8x PCIe raid card  
> into a
> PCIe 16x slot on an SLI board configured to run 8x per slot (or  
> even 16x
> per slot on some of the new boards)?

I believe you can.  You can definitely put a 4x PCIe card into a 16x  
slot, I'm not sure it the SLI-ishness makes a difference.  That's  
probably the question you're asking.