What motherboard for core duo 4300?

[Rossco 23]

G'day Ted,No problems in overclocking the CPU beyond 290 just that it is difficult to get the rig to boot or run stable above this. Mine goes to 290 & is rock solid so far. Have been running at this speed for a couple of weeks now & not a single problem. I tried to set 295 & the system hung. Could well be the ram settings need tweeking however I'm not too familiar with doing that myself & besides at this speed I'm pretty happy with the performance. The only guys that appear ro be getting above 300 with this mobo are doing jumper mods to the board from what I've read.Cheers,Ross

[Ted Striker 338]

G'day Ross,Sounds similar to what I've read on other websites, I need to get a different motherboard if I want to set the FSB higher than 290.Ted

[Guest D17S]

The P35 is Intel's newest chipset. Everyone is making a board based on this chipset these days. for instance: http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=6&id=2253Important FSB terminology detail: When they talk about the FSB at 1066, it's "Intel-speak." The real FSB here is 266mhz. To draw a parallel, remember DDR means that RaM runs at Double the Data Rate (DDR) of the FSB? Well, when Intel speaks about a FSB, they use Intel-Speak. The FSB number they advertise is a QDR'd FSB number, or Quadruple the Data Rate (QDR) of the actual FSB speed (aka, "Quad Pumped"). The FSB is StiLL 266 mhz. Intel would advertise this as a 1066 FSB . . . 266 (actual FSB) x 4 (QDR'd) = 1066 (Intel-Speak) Intel just likes folks to speak of it in terms of its QDR number. It's a bigger number and a lay audience will fall for it every time. Bigger has to be better. In this case, a 266 mhz FSB gets advertised as a FSB of 1066. There are technical reasons that support this, but still to my mind this is intentionally misrepresenting the simpler facts of the matter, but here we are. So, if you hear a FSB advertised at 800mhz, what's the real FSB? 800 divided by 4 = 200mhz. See how it works? Always think in terms of the Real FSB, For instance when Ross has his FSB turned up to 290mhz. That's the real FSB. Everything will be driven off this FSB speed. For instance, the ram will run at 2 x 290 = 580 mhz. The a E4400 CPU with that 10 multiplier will run at 10 x 290 = 2.9 ghz. Its all based on the real FSB number. For its advertising purpose, Intel would call that 290 FSB a Quad Pumped (x 4) = 1160mhz FSB. It's not though. It's a 290mhz FSB.The P35 is looking like it can easily run up to a ReaL FSB of 500 mhz. (Intel-Speak'd 2000mhz). Intel is enabling faster speeds on their FSB because their next gen CPUs will run on a ReaL FSB of 333 (Quad Pumped 1333). If you are buying a new Mobo as a permanent board, get a board based on the P35 chipset. Everyone is making them. Its just a matter of features. Just pick a flavor.If you're worried about missing out on this next gen, you are going even beyond this next gen, right now. For instance, the $120, E4300 has a 9 multiplier. With this little guy, you can turn up the FSB to 350 mhz+ to get CPU to run at 3.2 ghz (9 x 350 = 3.2 ghz). Within 10 minutes of your first boot, you are running a FSB 10% faster than anything Intel has even released yet . . . on a hundred-buck CPU. Not enough? OK. Now drop the CPU's multiplier to 7 (yes, you can do this) and run the FSB on up to 450 mhz (Quad Pumped 1800 mhz). 7 x 450 = (still) 3.2 ghz. Remember Intel's the next-gen CPU will run on a 333 mhz FSB or QDR'd 1333. You're 'ittle-bitty E4300 is running on a buss that is beyond anything that will happen this decade! If you can figure out how to play the game, it's just magic. Remember though, it's not the FSB speed that gives the performance. It's the CPU speed. As a general O/Cing strategy, run a moderate FSB speed and strive to achieve a maximum, stable CPU speed. But on the other hand, experiment higher FSB speeds. That P35 is a real FSB fireball. Great fun. The SATA drive and the dvd-rom will be fine. You will need a PCI-e video card with these modern mobos. Get a $100 7800, then wait for this, it will be out in Oct/Nov. http://news.softpedia.com/news/NVIDIA-039-...lub-55548.shtmlIf it's a quality unit, the 420 watt PSU will be sufficient. If it came in your case, use it till you get your new (G92) Vcard, then get one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817341010Reinstall ops system? . . . almost certainly. Get your files saved some where first. Then build you system and try to boot from the SATA "as is". You never know. It might work. If not, you know the drill.Are we havin' fun yet!?

[Ted Striker 338]

We're almost havin' fun...Thanks for clarifying the memory and FSB definitions Sam. I wonder what marketing group dreamed up that system.It seems that 290 FSB is the highest that the ASrock dual vista will do. If I want to get to 340 FSB, 3.4 ghz for the 4400, which I've heard they will do with stock cooling, do I need to get a different motherboard? If so, any budget recommendations? Or am I playing with fire attempting higher than 2.9 ghz? I don't want to buy an expensive motherboard for the future processors as I've been burned before doing this. When future arrives and its time to buy the next whiz bang processor, there will be some other technology out that I'll want and my board won't have it.Let's see if I understand the memory requirements. With a 290 FSB, the memory will be running at 2 x 290 = 540mhz. So I'll need DDR2 667 memory minimum. At 340 FSB, the memory will be running at 2 x 340 = 680mhz, so I better have DDR2 800 memory minimum. Is that correct?We're getting closer Sam, when's the next Intel price break?Ted

[Guest D17S]

Well, we're to the cost / performance trade-off part.The ASRock lets you save $100 by reusing your 6800, but might limit the CPU to a ~300 mhz FSB O/C. The cheapest alternative will be Intel's 965 chipset. This is a great choice for any current C2D CPU. Here's a 6 month old roundup: http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=2914&p=1 You can get get one for about 120 (or less). These will run to a 400mhz FSB. Opinion: I don't think the E4X00s are FSB limited on the ASRock board. A 3.0 ghz limit will be encountered on any board. The solution will be better CPU cooling and then, a CPU voltage increase in the bios. I don't think simply going with a different chipset will do it, alone, Above 3.0, it'll take better cooling so the core voltage can be dialed up a notch or two. I imagine 3.4 on a E4X00 can be done, but it'll be a superteaked setup. Expect 3.2. More deserves a "Job VerY well done." The ASRock set will cost 60 (mobo) + 100 (ram) + 120 (E4300) = 280 for a 3.0 ghz setup. The 965 set will cost 100 (mobo) + 100 (ram) + 100 (Vcard) + 120 (E4300) = 420 for the same 3.0 setup.imHo, either set will need a $60 Tuniq tower CPU cooler to get that last .2ghz. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835154001 As always that last 5% gets expensive. With the 965 setup, the $100 extra you'll spend on a minimum PCI-e Vcard (7600GT) will not provide a huge performance boost over your current 6800. The extra $50 on the 965 chipset just stacks the deck in your favor (I doubt it, but the ASRock could be FSB limited). The $50 Tuniq will veRy likely be necessary in either case. With this last $100, you're after .2 ghz. It's always like this when you 'trick it out' to get that last little bit.I'm going for a similar build, well kinda. I'll use a $150 P35, $100 for ram, $100 for the minimum PCI-e Vcard, $50 for the Tuniq, then $250 the Q6600 quad core 2.4 ghz (come July 22). With the Tuniq, I'm expecting 3.6 ghz (x 4 cores). Initial expense = $600. Consider: vs $470 for the Tuniq'd 965 setup? To me, that's good value for that extra 130 bucks mainly because I expect this technology set (sans Vcard) to remain sufficient for 3+ years. When Nvidia's new G92 Vcard comes along in October, I'll drop the big bucks on the card to drive a big monitor. That card will easily drive a 37"-42" 1080p LCD. I'll then swap the 7600GT into the P35's secondary Vslot and drive two 19" monitors I'm currently using.My initial expense is $600, then another $600 in October. FSX running at max, locked at 30 FPS snf never missing a beat on a 42" 1920x1080 LCD (and a couple of 19"-ers for Jepp charts and stuff). I'm at least hoping this might keep me satisfied for a while. We gotta be having fun now! This will be my system till 2010+. BTW, your ram calcs are right on. You got it!

[Ted Striker 338]

I did quite a bit of web surfing yesterday and came to the same conclusion as Ross and you. Pushing past 290 mhz is just going to cost more money for an interim system. The best value for now is the Asrock dual-vsta, 2gb of ddr2 ram, and use the rest of my existing hardware. I did notice that Intel is releasing an e4500 in July with an 11 multiplier, so I'll probably wait for that. 290 x 11 = 3190 mhz, I ought to be happy with that for a $280 upgrade from my P4 3.0 HT. That'll leave some cash to put toward a matrox triple-head-to-go and an IRVector Pro that everyone seems to be raving about. Might need to also get a 7950gt to drive three monitors though. Might need to get a second job too.....And of course I've got another question...The Asrock is only rated for ddr2 667 memory. Is putting in ddr2 800 OK? Ross's system seems to work fine with it. My understanding is that the 800 is just its max operating frequency and it will run fine at any lower frequency. Is this correct?Sam, that system you described sounds great, I'll be curious how it turns out. Shortly after you complete it, I'll probably be looking to build a new system. It never ends... Ted

[Guest D17S]

As you observed, the term 'rated' leaves a bit to be desired. If you just drop in the E4X00, the bios will look at the CPU and default the FSB to 200 mhz. Remember, these are 200 (fsb) x 9 / 10 /(11!) CPUs. The ram will run at 200 x 2 (DDR) = 400. This "rated" business sounds like the bios might have a setting where you can chose your ram's rated speed. Here's how it might go: If someone decided to use DDR(1)400 ram, the bios would probably just default to a 1 to 1 setting. That means with an E4X00, the FSB would run at 200 and ram would run at 2 X 200 or DDR400. However, if someone decided to use ram that could run faster (the DDR2 stuff), I think you will have the option to "lock" the ram to run at this faster, rated speed. If you have DDR2 667 rated ram, the bios could have a setting where it will apply whatever FSB multiplier to force the ram run at 667 mhz. I haven't looked over the bios in this board, but it is a normal bios / ram-speed set-er scheme.As described above though, the bios will have an option where the ram will simply run at 1:1. That means the ram will run at 2 times (DDR) the FSB, whatever it is. For instance a 290 FSB will result in ram running at 580 mhz. This is what we have been discussing so far. So it appears that you might have the option of either "locking" the ram at a set clock speed of just let it ride the FSB at 2X. If you are running a FSB of 290 with DDR2 667 ram, at 1:1 it will only be running at 580 mhz. Try "locking" the ram speed at the 667 setting. That will apply a DDR-er of greater than 2X (ahh, 2.little-bit-more?). Might as well get your money's worth.Just to confuse the issue, some bios' use the term "2:1" or "1:2." After all, the ram is being 2X'd from the FSB. Our only real weapon in this war of words is an actual knowledge of what's going on! I expect the 'rated' term only refers to the highest auto-set point available. It'll be something along these lines. You'll have to paruzzze the manual a bit, but you'll have a good idea of where they're going.I saw a 7900GS PCI-e in the Fry's ad for $100. That's a good deal.

[Ted Striker 338]

Sounds like the ddr2 667 is sufficient for me with this setup. If that's a lot less than the 800, I'll get it other wise I'll get the 800 for the increased chance of being able to use it in a future system. Sam, Ross, and others, thanks for all the information and help with this. I'm going to wait until July to purchase the parts but I'll post my system results here after I build it. Actually, I'll probabaly be posting for help as I build it. :-) Ted

[Guest D17S]

And here's what's comin' next after next:http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40396http://translate.google.com/translate?u=ht...n&hl=en&ie=UTF8It's the Larrabee and it's still 2 generations away. This is where both the FSB and separate Vcards finally go away. Say good night to Nvidia. In three years, they're toast. It will be AMD/ATI with their "Fusion" and INTC. Generally, I time upgrades to get a 10X increase over my existing hardware, for the same $$$. 'Same $$$' means this replacement CPU has to be in the $200-300 range. That July price cut finally allows the Q6600 to hit that target. From a 3Ghz P4, a single core of a C2D (at 2.4) is about a double. With a Q6600, there are 4 cores at 2.4. That's an 8X increase. Now a little O/C to 3.0+ finally gets the 10X. In ~ 3 years, this 10X will be available again. Larrabee will be a 10X beyond any QCore today. They are talking about 40 cores in 2009. From today's little ol' 4-Core, there's the 10X . . . plus it will have a massive Vcard, built in. These ridiculous $500 Vcard upgrades will finely go away. Hummm . . . might be able to up the price trigger point bit. If they're going to throw in a massive integrated Vcard, maybe $300-400 might be justifiable next time.Just more magic coming down the road.

[Guest Seadog]

Sam, if you have the time and the inclination, could you take a look at the review of P35 DDR2 boards posted just now at Tom's Hardware -http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/06/19/eig...oards_compared/As I decipher the gist of it, the reviewer is of the opinion that P35 adds nothing significant in real-world performance and lacks some features compared to 680iSLI boards, e.g., unlinked memory, numbers of peripheral ports, etc. My deciphering skills pale against those who know more, however, and I'd appreciate your take on the reviewer's conclusions. For instance, it could be that he simply picked the runts of the litter to contrast with the nVidia boards, but I wouldn't know about that. I did read that DFI's Oskar Wu is working on a P35 board that runs circles around the the current crop. I'm just trying to get a fix on comparative board functions and feature sets.Your insight would be appreciated.-Seadog

[Guest D17S]

Initially I was looking forward to the Nvidia 6X0i chipset series, then I saw this:http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2007/01/03/t...ransferdiagramsTom's did a harddrive controller (southbridge) 'head to head,' Intel vs Nvidia. They raid 0'd 4 Raptors and ran data transfer rate tests. Intel's southbridge allowed its SATA II buss to transfer at its full capability of 350Mb/sec. That's good. It's your money's worth. However on Nvidia's southbridge, their SATA II buss was limited to 110Mv/sec. Woah! For a 'raider', this won't do . . . at all. Nvidia's SATA II buss is (was?) broke. I'll be running a big raid 0 on this next system and I'll need (well, hopefully!) every bit of SATA II buss' capability I paid for. The Nvidia chipset advertises SATA II capability but only actually manages ATA100 transfer rates. Now I'm shopping for a P35. How were they hoping to get away with this? Consider: For a single drive, this is a non-issue. The fastest single drive available today can transfer at 80Mb/sec. The Nvidia chipset will have no problem with that. Maybe that is why Nvidia chose to let their product go to market in this entirely crippled condition. Who would notice? Tom's, that's who. Good job, Tom.But if one keeps that potential limitation in mind (they may have fixed this too), the 6X0is seem to be a perfectly reasonable choice.I really stopped looking after that article, but I believe the 6X0is will allow you to set memory speed to anything you want. This is a neat trick. With the Intel boards, you must chose a ram speed (aka, a ram speed to FSB ratio). Intel gives several ram speed choices. You pick the one that keeps you at or below your ram's rated speed. You'll generally have to settle for ram that is running only at its rated speed. So what's wrong with that? Hey, ram will overclock too. Party on! Nvidia (the party machine) lets you pick AnY ram speed to run. The bios does all the fancy arithmetic to make the ram run at this speed. Very trick, but does it matter?Ted is going to be using ram that can run at 667 mhz, then running a 290Mhz FSB to get the CPU to 3.0 ghz. He can either let the ram ride the FSB at 1:1 for a ram speed of 290 X 2 580 Mhz or lock it to the 667mhz setting. That's OK, right? Wrong! Let's crack another 6-er. That 667 is just the ram's guaranteed speed. It'll go faster, for sure. Boring ol'Intel will not let you dial up your ram's speed until the ram actually explodes (kidding!). But I want to. Intel says "tough." Nvidia says "Go for it." With ram rated at 667, if I get Patriot ram built with micron ships, I might be able to get it up to 750Mhz . . . maybe even up to 800Mhz (that's DDR2 800's rates speed). But again, does it matter? To a computer hobbiest, yes. But to a computer user, only scientific instruments (or dozens of runs with FRAPS) will be able to tell any difference. To a simmer this is a lot of trouble for virtually no reward. This feature is more about toy value, but what a fun toy!Just FYI, I understand the P35's ram pre-sets become very closely spaced once the FSB is raised above 300 mhz. At least that will let you play a little. Heck, try for the next higher ram speed set point. If it won't go, it'll just not boot. Honest, you won't hurt a thing.From the 965 chipset, and now with the P35, Intel stopped supporting IDE devices. The Mobo manufactures (almost) all add chips and plugs to provide plugins for 2 of your CD/DVDs and/or IDE harddrives. That's the way we're going. Don't buy anymore IDE (Parallel ATA) anythings. I have an IDE-Raid PCI card that I bought for $18. I can run 4 IDE drives or 2 in Raid. I'll have 2 IDE opticals plugged in to the P35 and provisions for 4 more IDE HDs from the PCI card. That'll be OK.An additional factor is a bit of future proofing. If you are looking at building once every several years, this might be a consideration. I have an old IC5H southbridge. (The P35's SB is up to a model IC9H). I loaded up Vista recently and found my old IC5H was not fully supported. My IC5H's SATA I raid wouldn't work on Vista. It was Obsolete. Well! The only real difference I see between the 965 and the P35 is that southbridge update. Nvidia's southbridge is a mess, but more than that, I'm concerned about Nvidla's future. These 6X0i chipsets may just be a flash in the pan. Now on to FSB overclocking. The front side buss is a Buss. It doesn't do anything . . . that is, except allow other things to go fast on it. It's the race track. The CPU, the ram and the Vcard are the race cars that run on this track. The track doesn't "go fast," the cars do! For instance, Ted will be running his CPU (race car) at a speed of 3.0 ghz on a buss (race track) that is capable of handling, well, Much more. Try an experiment. Intel will (generally) allow you to turn down your C2D's CPU multiplier. For instance a FSB at 300 mhz will drive a 10X'd CPU' to 3.0Ghz. Here's the experiment. Will a faster FSB make Any difference . . . at all? Turn the CPU's multiplier dowm to 8X. Now we need to turn the FSB up to 375Mhz to keep the CPU at 3.0 Ghz (8 X 375Mhz = 3.0Ghz). That's a whoppin' whole bunch of FSB speed increase. Will it matter. Well break out the scientific instruments again (you didn't put 'em away did you?).Well OK, you got an extra couple FPS, but that was some kind of anomoly. Remember the SATA buss description? It can limit preformance. But in the case of the front side Buss, there's nothing that even comes close to needing all the speed it provides. Even at a stock speed of 266 (or whatever) all the components can run at full speed. They are not buss limited. FYI, here are some buss examples: The old IDE 100 HD and AGP Vcard busses could sTill provide Plenty of speed for even Raptors and 8800s. Now we have PCI-e 2.0? Well, the Nvidia G92 is supposed to be a 3X-er of the 8800 series. Maybe we will finally need the bandwidth that plain ol PCI-e provides. The front side Buss is no different. There is nothing that even uses the bandwidth that is available at stock FSB speeds. I also read about DFI's guy getting a 650 mhz FSB to run, and just smiled. These are upgrades for the singular purpose of selling you entirely unnecessary stuff.So what's the point of overclocking? You have to drive the CPU to a faster speed with something. If Intel would let us turn UP their CPU's multiplier, we could just do that. But they only let us do that on the most expensive CPUs. They rest of us have to use the FSB to drive the CPU to its design speed (ed. imHo, there was only one C2D. It is a single design that can run at 3.0ghz on Intel's $7 heatsink. From that single product, an entire line was formed by reseting multipliers and rubber stampin'.)A lot of the Mobo/chipset hype is about its overclocking capability. It really doesn't matter how fast it can go, as long as it can go fast enough to drive your CPU to your desired overclock. That's it. A mobo that can run a FSB of 600mhz is entirely useless . . . that is, except for one thing . . . . It's just sooo much fun to play with this stuff! So Nvidia's 6X0i or the Intel's 968/P35? Here's a couple of things to consider, but overall it really doesn't matter. Figure the O/C you're gonna need and make sure your board will go there. Then find a feature set that works for you and go with it.

[Guest Seadog]

Thanks, Sam, for the fog-cutter. I'd forgotten that the nVidia 6X0i SATA II implementation was underwhelming.Regarding the feature sets of the P35 vs. the 680iSLI, I had to go so far as perusing parts of the Intel ICH9 Family Datasheet (808 pp.) to be sure about what's what. Anyway, what I see is that both chipsets will actually support a 1333 FSB (yup, I know it's really 333) and will go sufficiently higher for a stable retail air cooled 3.0 GHz proc speed. Then things get a bit different.ICH9 comes in 4 flavors now, plain, R, DH and DO; R = RAID, DH = Digital Home, and DO = Digital Office. All will support 45 nm processors; can't say that about nVidia. ICH9R is the one to get. Plain only has 4 SATA ports; the others have 6. R adds the 2 SATA ports, and support for RAID, eSATA, Turbo Memory (aka Robson), Matrix Storage Technology and ViiV.ICH9R can support DDR3 (if one is interested); nVidia can't. ICH9R supports up to 12 USB ports, while the 680iSLI goes up to 10. ICH9R supports up to 4 PCI Bus ports, but the 680iSLI supports up to 5. ICH9R gives you Intel's High Def audio, while 680iSLI gives you various choices, but mostly Realtek which has crippled EAX support. For dual graphics card solutions, ICH9R gives you 2 PCIe x8, while 680iSLI gives you 2 x16 plus an x8 for the physics card if you want that. Both the ICH9R and the 680iSLI provide 6 SATA ports, though, as you've reminded, they aren't playing on the same field.So, for me, current usage needs are better met with the ICH9R's extra 2 USB ports and eSATA support and better SATA throughput. I have no intention of running a second video card or a physics card, so those nVidia features are wasted on me. Nobody's putting more than 3 old-style PCI slots on a board these days, so that difference doesn't matter. DDR3 doesn't matter to me now, and really isn't likely to make a heck of a lot of difference in the future to me (that last 5% thing). And I prefer Intel's audio solution to that of Realtek, just a bit of bling, but nice.Whew! That's done. Thanks for your help.-Seadog

[Guest D17S]

Great analysis. I like that ICH9 too. Intel's Matrix Storage incarnation this time is talking about being able to dynamically change raid array structures without rebuilding. That's gotta be some kind of magic. Looking forward to playing with it. I believe the Vcard PCI-e lane split is 16X / 4X between the 16X Vcard slots on the default P35 setup.. Asus added an extra chip to re-split the lanes to 8X and 8X. Once again, they are playing the buss hype game. A while back one of the big review houses did a PCI-e 8X lane / 16X lane head to head and found no difference. As it stands, 8 PCI-e lanes provides more than enough bandwidth for any modern Vcard. Nvidia's 16 lanes X 2 is an entirely unnecessary feature. I believe Intel chose to allocate 16 lanes to the Vcard's PCI-e slot ONLY because they were afraid no one would buy a mobo with only an 8 lane'd PCI-e slot. Asus has the right idea by splitting the lanes 8X8, but even then, why bother? I'm not an SLI-er, but I don't believe the P35 can support SLI / Crossfire for some other reason. If that's the case, a second Vcard can NeVer function as anything more than a Vport for additional monitors. The primary card does all the work and the second card just sits there providing extra monitor outputs. So either way, it's just marketing jabber. DDR3 has some slight promise. But like you said, it won't provide more than that last, real expensive 5%. Generally, DDR3 is just a name they slapped on the next set of voltage decreases / speed increases. DDR2-1066 will already run at 1:1 on a 533 mhz FSB and Intel hasn't even released the 333 mhz FSB yet. My guess is that Intel's next-next-gen consumer FSB will be 400 mhz. Intel's servers are already at a 400mhz FSB (1600 QDR). They are able to very happily use (fancy) DDR2-800 at 1:1, but this be the EnD of the FSB. Larrabee will be after that and the FSB (and the PCI-e buss) will go away. DDR ram will probably go away too. With the FSB gone, there will be nothing to double the data rate of. So how is that going to work? I haven't heard a peep about what kind of ram the fuSeD Larrabee will use. I think we can safely skip, entirely, the DDR3 revolution. DDR2 speeds are entirely enough to support any DDR ram applications out through the EnD of DDR's life. imHo, DDR3 is just more stuff, entirely created for the sake of selling us more stuff. Great fun to watch the goings on.

[Guest Seadog]

D17S wrote:"Great analysis."The credit is all yours. I've been studying your posts since January 22. Without them, I wouldn't have had half a chance of confidently plowing my way through the many alternatives. It's not possible to overstate how much help you provide. There's an outside chance that when I build my new setup sometime in the weeks shortly after July 22, I may refer to it affectionately as "Sam." Outside, mind you.:( -Seadog

[Ted Striker 338]

I agree. I've learned more from Sam's posts than reading the hardware websites.One problem with the various website hardware reviews is that they rarely use FS as a test platform. Of all the standard tests that they do use, which one is the most indicative of the results to expect when using FS?Sam, are you thinking about going to the Avsim conference? If you were interested, an FS Hardware presentation by you I'm sure would be extremely well received and I assume would reduce your conference expenses. Just a thought. I also made a suggestion to Tom on the Avsim Conference forum to invite some the hardware manufacturers to attend and demonstrate/discuss their products using FS. Without committing, he indicated that this might happen. 31 days to july 22nd.......but who's counting.Ted