-=> ROY J. TELLASON wrote to WAYNE CHIRNSIDE <=-
 
 WC> Saw a Gigabyte board on the net with every imaginable port and it
 WC> had either 5 or six available slots, supported _4_ Gig of RAM and I
 WC> believe a 4 Gig intel processor!!!

 RJT> Only one?  :-)

 Yeah  ain't it a bitch 

 WC> These are shop or home built computers and not something you'll
 WC> find at a retail outlet.

 RJT> Depends on the retail store,  I try to find some fairly odd places.

Yeah there's, or was, a custom build shop local to me
that offered prices comperable to Pricewatch but they
are rare shops indeed where you can walk out with a work horse
P.C. for 500 instead of the more typical 1500 for a lesser
machine.

 WC> This board with processor IS available at www.pricewatch.com NOW in
 WC> bare bones configuration and you add the goodies as your desire or
 WC> compulsion dictates. SCSI and EIDE support as well also on the
 WC> board.

 RJT> Cool.  I remember looking at one MB a few years back which could hold
 RJT> two CPUs,
 
I wouldn't know how to apply them and nothing I'm currently doing would
require 2 processors.

 RJT>  and in addition to the usual stuff had _three_ SCSI channels on board,
 RJT> including one wide one.  Only problem I had with it was that it wanted
 RJT> P-II (or Celeron) type CPUs,  and I didn't care to pursue those,

 Neither do I but that's what the H.P. has and it seems fine
 to me. I AM looking to see what I might replace it with.

 RJT> preferring AMD parts for the most part.  This was available for $75 or
 RJT> so,  back about 3 years ago.

 Things have changed enormously. Intel has radically cut their 
 processor costs except at the bleeding edge, say like 2.8 Ghz
 on up. Last I looked you could get an Intel 2.5 GHz for
 something like you're quoting for the AMD or a bit more.
 I suspect Intel cut it's margin as AMD was getting innovative
 and becoming a real threat in hopes of forcing them out
 of the marketplace.
 Intel has the name recognition and if they keep this price strategy
 up long enough they have the resources to outlast AMD
 and corner the market.
 I prefer healthy competition and the best for AMD as
 it makes for cheap CPU's for us be they AMD or Intel!

 RJT> I can still remember a few years back how this guy I knew had a
 RJT> 386 MB that had a bad problem in the IDE part.  He could disable
 RJT> it in CMOS,  but it still wouldn't let him plug in another "paddle
 RJT> card" to use instead.  That MB was of _very_ limited usefulness
 RJT> after that.  If you can't take it out...

 WC> I suspect an EideMax  or Pro card would have worked fine there as
 WC> in stock configuration it takes over from the existing controller.

 RJT> But the existing controller was bad,  and wouldn't let anything else
 RJT> work in there.  I dunno...  That incident sorta put me off on having
 RJT> lots and lots of stuff built in.

If the board was old disable via jumper and use a card, if the board
was newer like my H.P. there's an option to completely
disable in CMOS. YMMV as I've never lost a controller card
of any type.
 
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