New mother board

[Dave Lawton]

Brian,
have a look at these for an explanation of the AGP variants

http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2001/agp4x_update_e/

http://www.hardtecs4u.com/reviews/2001/agp4x_e/index2.php

See comment from Haig on forum

http://forum.matrox.com/mgaforum/Forum15/HTML/000024.html

The May edition (UK) of Personal Computer World had a article on the subject

The G200 is AGP x2 at 3.3v

Dave

[Jerry Jones]

Brian,

Thanks for the information.

(Truly ASTONISHING.)

I agree 100% about Adobe being "Mac-centric."

I, too, find Photo-Paint by Corel to be far easier to use than Photoshop for print jobs.

For Web, I find Ulead's PhotoImpact to be the best.

The only problem with PhotoImpact is that it doesn't feature enough support for CMYK color to be used for pre-press.

As a Web app, it's fantastic, however.

That's amazing stuff about prior versions of Photoshop, although Doc points out he's run version 4 on AMD procs and nothing has turned up.

Jerry Jones

[TnT]

One funny, well actually annoying, thing about Adobe's Mac-centricity is that in the computer lab I work at 60% of the problems come from people trying to print from Adobe software (namely Pagemaker) on an iMac.

[TnT]

Also...

Doc, does the K7S6A support AGP 2x? It seems like it is 4x only... I'm really interested in this board since I'll be upgrading soon, but like Brian I have a Marvel G200.

[Greebe]

if it's 4x then it MUST be backward compatable. It's just part of the AGP spec.

[dsp]

Greebe,

Just a question, doesn't the AGP 2.0 spec state that a 3.3 volt AGP card doesn't work in a 1.5 volt (only) slot. This is what I read on page 185 of the pdf (not like I understand it all or even that much)

dsp

[TnT]

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. The ECS website doesn't say if it is 1.5V or 3.3/1.5V. Just want to make sure before I make a decision.

[Greebe]

hmmm good point. I can't remember right off hand if the G200 is 3.3 or 1.5 (think 3.3 because of it's age), but can answer that about the G400's

Anywho I'm sure someone else will beat me to the punch before I awake

[Frank Marshall]

"One funny, well actually annoying, thing about Adobe's Mac-centricity is that in the computer lab I work at 60% of the problems come from people trying to print from Adobe software (namely Pagemaker) on an iMac."

If memory serves, Adobe bought Pagemaker from Aldus or bought-out Aldus altogether, can't remember which, in order to fast-track it to an Adobe-branded competitor to Quark. In any case I'm quite sure it's not a *real* Adobe application. Haven't they dumped Pagemaker in favour of their homegrown InDesign?

The point of all this is that it may well be the case that Aldus Pagemaker was originally a PC application that was ported over to the Mac...

[gpwhitehead]

go 4 the new asus board and the amd 2000+ and al least a gig of ddr mem or rambus, but i use ddr

[Greebe]

*snickers* and exactly where would one put RAMBUS mem on an AMD mb?

[Jammrock]

Maybe if you push REALLY hard you can get it in Or maybe Rambus is forcing AMD to use RDRAM as compensation, because Rambus owns the patents for SDRAM and DDR, right?

Jammrock

[Snake-Eyes]

And all this time they've been keeping the fact that RDRAM will work in all our Athlon motherboards a dirty little secret!

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks, guys.

Now I'm really buggered. My G-200 is AGP-2, 3.3 V. It would seem that all modern m/bs have AGP-4 sockets, 1.5 V, but some with 3.3 V switching automatically selected, as well. As the key slot of an AGP-2 card is at the opposite end of the connector to an AGP-4 one, there is absolutely no way that a Marvel G-200 can be used in a modern m/b, is there?

In view of the shabby treatment that Matrox has afforded us, I'm very reluctant to go for a G-400 (even if I could find one) and I'm not sure that a G-450 Marvel is an answer, in any case, do I have any alternatives (at a reasonable cost) for analogue capture with TV in/out, with whatever m/b?

[Dr Mordrid]

Well....I wouldn't say that!!

I've tested my G400's, G400-Flex (RT-2000's display card), G450-eTV and G450DH on the K7S5A and the Gigabyte GA-7VRX with NO PROBLEMS AT ALL, even though both are AGP4x capable. You can even set the AGP "x" value in the BIOS on these mainboards.

I have no doubts whatsoever that the G200-TV, G400-TV (and likely the RR-G) would also work....I just haven't the time to fo a full install and test of them.

As far as the physical fit goes that's a non-issue. The G200-TV plugs right into their slots. That much I did try.

The only compatability issue I've run into is one between the Gigabyte GA-7VRX and the Fasttrak TX4. For some reason the TX4's PCI Bridge chip can't get any memory resources, but Fasttrak100's work perfectly. In fact there is a version of the GA-7VRX that has an embedded FT100; the GA-7VRXP. How this incompatability washes out fault-wise remains to be seen.

The K7S5A is rock-solid with every piece of hardware I have, both public and things I can't talk about. Even its embedded NIC works like a charm. At ~$50 USD a copy this thing is one of the best bargains I've ever seen.

I'd love to try its sibling, the K7S6A (~$75 usd), which has the SiS-745 chipset and DDR333 support. Maybe after some of these betas finish up

ECS K7S6A

Dr. Mordrid