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Loading ...5.25″ bays and components rethink (and my new Laptop)
thewelshbrummie
I’ve been spending the last few days looking at extras: mainly bits to fill the external drive bays.
In my 1st post I mentioned that I bought a new DVD-RAM drive; this will move to my newbuild when I have bought a case; that will certainly be a Black Antec P180/2, which has four 5.25″ and one 3.5″ external drive bays. And the sideproject means that I still need a floppy drive, so that wil fill the 3.5″ bay. As I want a card reader, that will have to use a 5.25″ bay.
The problem is that I really want the iMON Ultra Bay by Soundgraph, which uses two 5.25″ bays, which would mean that I would either have to buy a different case or go without one component.
But that was until I found the Scythe Kama Panel. It can control up to 6 fans (with the Antec Case having 5 fan mounts) but I can remove the slot-in attachment that controls 4 of the fans and replace it with a slimline DVD writer; a quick look on Scan and I’ve found this slot-loading DVD-RAM writer. While it is an IDE drive (my current DVD-RAM writer uses SATA cables) it will certainly be the best way to get the iMon panel, a card reader, a floppy drive & 2 DVD-RAM wrtiers. And I can happily live without full control of 3 fans.
The biggest problem I now have is choosing a motherboard with enough USB headers; I need 3, but that will limit my choice of motherboard (MOBO). This is especially true as I need a MOBO with:
- 2x Gigabit LAN (one to my router, the other for a crossover cable for my laptop)
- 2x pci slots (one for the Catweasel, one for my TV card)
- 2x pci-E 1x (when Creative upgrade the X-Fi Gamer and possibly one for wireless when 802.11n cards become available/cheap)
- 3x USB headers (front panel will use 1, the iMON will use a 2nd and the card reader a 3rd though both the iMON and card reader will use standard external USB ports)
- 5x SATA minimum, ideally more (2 system HDDs in RAID 1, one backup HDD for my Laptop, one for the DVD writer and one for the Kama Panel)
I could also do with a serial port, so that I can connect an Amiga directly to my pc (which would make the Catweasel redundant), though both pci and pci-E serial cards exist, and I may end up using my current desktop as a Linux box to do the transfers (as the apps are better on Linux).
I certainly don’t need any PS/2 ports and probably won’t need e-Sata as I intend on buying 1TB HDDs and using a RAID 1 mirror (and the Kama panel provides SATA power & data externally). However I want to use DDR3 memory, which will take some time to drop in price.
As for graphics, the obvious choice is the new 8800GT as it’s a single slot card and slightly quicker than the original 8800GTS cards. The single slot makes it far more practical for me, as I can easily use 5 pci/pci-E slots.
As things stand it’s still a case of window shopping and not buying until Penryn processors and DDR3 become mainstream but that should be the case by the Summer. In the meantime, I’ve got a new laptop from Zepto Computers with which I can use Vista; it’s essentially a business machine but has decent gaming potential (admittedly running games at the native 1680×1050 resolution with the 8600 isn’t viable but it’s way better than the 5200FX in my desktop). Here’s the specs:
- 2.4GHz T7700 CPU (800MHz FSB)
- 2GB RAM @800MHz
- 250GB HDD (5400rpm)
- DVD-RAM writer
- 15.4″ screen (1680×1050)
- SD/MMC card reader
- Expresscard/54
- 4USB 2.0
- mini Firewire
- Gigabit LAN
- Vista Ultimate
Which is why I want a MOBO with 2x Gigabit LAN, so I can get high speed transfers between my laptop and the newbuild. It’s also much faster than my current desktop. Using Adobe Audition 2.0 (audio editing app) to load a 1 hour mp3 (55MB at 128kbps) takes 60 seconds on my desktop; the laptop manages that in 30 seconds.
That’s the latest; more to follow when I start buying components!
Lol no one really needs e-sata, nor PS/2 ports these days.
For the gigabit transfers, couldn’t you just get a gigabit router? I’ve had my D-Link Gaming router for about a year now and I love it to bits.
A good point and something I haven’t ruled out, but I would also prefer wireless for my laptop as I do use it round my flat… and there aren’t any gigabit routers with wireless (let alone draft n) unless you have silly money to spend, so I’d have to buy both a gigabit switch and router. Therefore it seems easier (and cheaper) to get 2xGigabit on the MOBO and crossover cable to get gigabit transfers, obviously it takes MOBO costs sky high (I’m looking at the ASUS Maximus Extreme £158.99 ex-VAT) but to me it’s a better investment; especially as it seems sensible to wait for 802.11n to be ratified before buying into it.
Have you considered using a Scythe card reader/floppy drive, all in one 3.5″ bay, thus freeing up one of your 5.25″ bays? Available at Overclockers UK for £23.49. That’s what I did, also so that I could install an Ultra Bay. I have to say though that all I use the Ultra Bay now for is turning the machine on and off and opening the DVD drive using the remote control, and I’m considering switching to one of their wireless remotes (without any kind of display) and sticking another couple of optical drives in instead.
Forgot to mention also that on my case (Silverstone TJ09) at least, the Ultra Bay won’t fit flush, and sticks out at the front by about 7 or 8mm, looking a bit messy.