Hybrid Mobos

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Hybrid Mobos PCI-E/AGP8X, DDR2/DDR, ect

#1 locally pwned

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Posted 15 August 2007 - 11:25 AM

So I haven't got the cash in the near future for a full upgrade and I am considering options to boost performance until I can do so.

The main problem is that my machine is a socket 478-era beast; so in order to upgrade the proc, I'd need a new mobo, memory, video card, ect.

However, I have seen mobos that appear to be "transitional" in nature; they include both types of video card slot, both kinds of memory slots...and support Core 2 Duo processors.

Has anyone used one of these? I am sure there are folks out there in the same boat.

One nice thing is that these boards are cheap! I saw one for 60 bucks. So I thought I'd get a nice Core 2 and the board, then just throw all my current mem, video card, ect into the mix.

But! Then it occurred to me that while I have 2 gigs of memory, it is spread across four sticks: two 1 gig matched pairs. The trouble is, the board has 2 DDR and 2 DDR2 slots. So, I'd have to live with only a gig for a while because:

1. You couldn't possibly mix both types of ram, could you? It's one thing when you are mixing and matching the same type and speed but different sizes....but it seems to me that mixing DDR and DDR2 shouldn't work.

2. The 1 gig, side by side in the paltry DDR slots, would not be operating in Dual Channel mode, would they?

So, I'd get my nice shiny Core 2 but take a performance hit in the memory department until I could throw a couple gigs of
6400 in the other slots.

If my hunch on question 2 is correct, the only thing I could imagine keeping me from eventually adding the faster memory and a very eventual 8800 nVidia card would be the lack of Dual Channel support for the memory; that'd be the only real drop in performance that I can imagine. But I am not sure if I am correct on that one.

This post has been edited by locally pwned: 15 August 2007 - 11:34 AM

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#2 Mr Alpha

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Posted 15 August 2007 - 11:56 AM

I've heard good thing about ASRocks boards. They make these kinds of hybrid boards based on VIA chipset. Performance wise they tend to be slower than the non-hybrid nVIDIA and Intel boards.

locally pwned, on Aug 15 2007, 07:25 PM, said:

1. You couldn't possibly mix both types of ram, could you? It's one thing when you are mixing and matching the same type and speed but different sizes....but it seems to me that mixing DDR and DDR2 shouldn't work.

No, you can't mix RAM.

locally pwned, on Aug 15 2007, 07:25 PM, said:

2. The 1 gig, side by side in the paltry DDR slots, would not be operating in Dual Channel mode, would they?

I believe the DDR2 would work in dual-channel mode at least.