need a motherboard.

[bmxfreakrider]

well im finally starting to get my am2 system squared away, but having ordered a abit an52, and noticed that it only had one ide connector, and just 6 audio ports, i need to find something better.

what i need:
optical out
2 IDE ports
at least 2 SATA 3.0 ports
at least 4 rear usb ports
onboard networking
no onboard video (if possible)
and at least one pci x16 slot

atx is best

 

[eyeCpc]

Look over some Asus or Gigabyte models. Some boards will handle 6 sata drives along with seeing two ide channels. Many will see only two pci slots there if you use those. Many are now seen with only onboard audio and no onboard video. So no worry there.

One Asus model comes to mind there. The M2N-Plus SLI Vista edition can be seen at Newegg.com - ASUS M2N-Plus SLI Vista Edition Socket AM2 NVIDIA nForce 500 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail That has 4 rear usb ports, two ide channels, 8 channel onboard audio, and only two pci slots.

 

[Sora]

Why not get a good mobo with only one IDE port and just use a SATA-> IDE adapter. I am almost 100% positive they have those..

 

[eyeCpc]

The sata to ide adapters allow you to run sata drives on an ide channel if the board lacks any sata ports. The performance is lost when you use the slower bus for that however. The reason why you see boards with only one ide channel is mainly for optical drives or simply running older ide drives you already have along with sata. Most optical drives are still ide.

 

[Sora]

SATA is faster than IDE so there would be no problem if you wanted to run an IDE drive through an SATA port with an adapter.

 

[eyeCpc]

One option for either drive type is a universal adapter for use on usb as another alternative. You can see one of those at USB 2.0 to SATA / IDE Bridge Adapters

For running ide drives on a sata bus you first have to install the ide to sata converter which then allows the ide drive to run by that interface. But you won't necessarlly gain anything there. That simply allows the use of ide drives when you don't have two ide channels available and are running ide optical drives.