The New AMD Building Thread

Oman7,
I just looked in the manual, and it's the heatsink for the GSata 2! It's made by Realtek for GigaByte. No, these aren't purple like the other ones, but they are the same thing, only 4 ports instead of two! Yes, a southbridge get's fairly warm, that's why the heatsink. It's a microprocessor that runs at a certain speed just like the Northbridge and Southbridge are microprocessors. It's needed if you want more than 6 total Sata ports, which is all the regular Southbridge can support. It's not like USB where you can use a USB hub to get more ports. Please note the heatsink and it's heatpipe cooling on the intel Southbridge, and you'll understand the need for a heatsink.

Russ

 

The normal southbridge does a bit more than just S-ATA though. Granted, that's where most of the bandwidth goes...

 

Sam,
The southbridge usually includes controls for the usb ports, firewire ports, serial and parallel ata, agp, raid and other component connections. There are various motherboard specific functions added to or deleted from the southbridge from time to time by motherboard manufacturers, but these are the basics. Anything else is just minor stuff!

Russ

 

AGP?

 

Sam,
Yes AGP. The AGP bus was a function of the southbridge. It's not relevant any more though.

Russ

 

Seems unusual considering back then the southbridges didn't even have heatsinks...

 

Back in those days, the bus speeds and bandwidths were much lower, and they didn't need them. Hell, you didn't even need a CPU cooler at one time. It wasn't that awful long ago when 40MHz was a fast machine, and the CPU didn't even need a heatsink, or have a provision to mount one. Most didn't even have a heatsink! It wasn't until the Pentium came along that CPU coolers came into being needed. Even then all they were, were chunks of finned aluminum with a tiny 40mm fan on the top, and were about 1/4 the size of a Rubics Cube! They sold for about $3!

I have a Pentium Overdrive that that came with it's own built in cooler, and ran at 83MHz. The whole package is roughly 2"x2" x 1" including the pins of the CPU, and the heatsink and 40mm fan.

Today, the cheapest home computer you can buy has more computing power than the computers that took us to the Moon, and that cost millions of dollars to build!

Russ

 

Or go further back and think of colossus if you will. Heck, how much would it cost in wood to make a Core i7 abacus? it's all relative, comparisons that far back are relatively meaningless.

 

Just in case anybody is intersted, everything Russ explained about my board, right on the money.

 

Relative, but not meaningless. You still have to crawl before you can walk. It all started somewhere. In the space of about 15 years. CPU bus speeds have gone up well over 200%, and the available bandwidth has grown accordingly. The x86 history all started with the 8MHz 286 of 1982, which was the foundation for every x86 that followed.

The greatest CPU of all time was the AMD 386DX40 of 1991. It brought more people to modern computing than any other chip in history. It was cheaper than the 386DX33 that Intel offered and a good deal faster with it's 40MHz bus speed. It would put most of the 25MHz and 33MHx 486 systems to shame! There have been other great CPUs since, but none ever lasted as long! It just went on and on, seemingly forever! It was the ass kicker of it's day until the arrival of the double pumped 486DX/2-66. It was on top for almost 1 1/2 years! Given the speed of chip development during that time span, it's an incredible feat.

While most of that would be meaningless to you, as you're too young to have been a part of it, the fact remains that modern home computing might not be where it is today without it. It introduced a tremendous amount of ordinary people to computing, and was the foundation for everything we have today. Games, Sound, Video and speed because people had had a taste, and wanted more! Given how much money it cost in those days to build even a cheap PC, it defined what was to come!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

As it happens I used a 386 for a bit, my friend's. This goes back many years...

 

Sam,
The funny part is it cost more for the system than what most of us build today! Two to three times more! I built my first computer, a 386/SX in 1989! LOL!!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

You may find this funny. Im now considering giving my brother MY board, and buying the GA-MA790X-UD4P for myself LOL! It would be an interesting experiment in OC'ing. I believe the new board could tell me a great deal! Response, OC limit, PSU load, etc. I wanna new board Darnit LOL! Once and for all, i'll know if my PSU is worth a crap LOL! Yes sam, I know its far from the best PSU now. I wish I could afford a proper PSU for my baby LOL! You know, an 850W zalman!!!

 

Oman7,
I keep saying great minds think alike! I sent an email to Gigabyte today, because my monitor will not work right with the OBG in my computer. I don't believe there's anything wrong with either of them, it's just they seem to be compatible with one another! I told them that I felt under the circumstances the UD4P would be the better choice for me, and asked them to consider making me a deal. Hey, it never hurts to ask! LOL!! It helps that they know the whole history of this build. They know I've replaced everything in it The computer works fine, and the OBG works with everything but what I have. The monitor works perfect with every computer I've tried it on. Together, they are the marriage from hell! LOL!! For all I went through, I don't think I'm asking a lot. We'll see!

Russ

 

Sam,
Would that be the 2000 slave model, or the 1000? ROFL!!

Russ

 

Im thinking thats what im gonna do. I get bored quickly LOL! Time for a new toy. The GA-MA790X-UD4P is the kind of toy/tool that I can employ for years to come. 8 Sata ports is hard to pass up And being there is no OBG to taint my results, I can get some conclusive info as far as my CPU capabilities. Do I have a bad bin, is my PSU sufficient, etc.
Russ...once again, I thank you. I MIGHT have landed this board anyway, but you steered me in the right direction

By the way. It looks like my Bro's case will support an ATX BARELY! LOL! It shouldn't heat things up too bad, if at all.

 

Oman7,
Glad to have been able to help. I'm going to push like hell for that MB too!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Oman7,
Did you by happen to notice that the GA-MA790X-UD4P has a three year warranty? I did! LOL!!

Russ

 

so does my bro's old board >:[

 

This looks like a good deal 99.00 bucks
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10010088