Gigabyte motherboard question GA-EP45-UD3P

[snipeman]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128358

I'm looking for a new server motherboard and somewhat settled on the one above. What gives me pasue is the Realtek chipset on the ethernet. I've read many messages here advising people to avoid Realtek chipsets in favor of Marvell or Intel.

I'm having trouble finding newer full featured motherboards that DON'T have a Realtek chipset.

Is this still a problem today? Are Realtek chipsets still iffy? Would I really need to buy a PCI Intel NIC to stick in a brand new motherboard? That seems like a bummer to me.

I have some Gigabyte motherboards several years old and I'm happy with them. They do have Marvell, and not Realtek. At some point Gigabye must have switched over.

If people feel the need to still avoid Realtek, does someone have a motherboard recommendation?

I'm looking to use it in my Sage Server with 3 1TB SATA drives (no raid) which also functions as a lite client. I do have wired gigabit ethernet run though my house. I don't have any extenders or HDHomeRuns, just a Haup WinTV 1600 ATSC tuner in my server, using 1 tuner hooked to an OTA antenna.

I'm interested in low power consumtion, and reliability. I don't really care about bells and whistle features. I just want something rock solid I don't have to fight with strange issues on.

I'd buy the GA-EP45-UD3P if someone could confirm they use the Realtek NIC without issues. Also, I'd buy another brand/model with Intel or Marvell if someone reports good success with it.

Thanks for any advice!

[toricred]

I'm using that exact board and it's working great. If you're into overclocking that board is incredible for that as well.

[gplasky]

3 motherboards. 2 with 2 different realtek. 1 with Intel embedded. No issues or differences among them all. Using the latest realtek drivers-not then manufacturer's driver.

Gerry

[valnar]

With your setup it looks like Realtek would be fine. Your CPU cycles may be a bit higher on your mobo and they won't go as fast as an Intel. They are not high performance NIC's, but if you don't do a lot of (UDP) streaming or really need more than 100Mb combined throughput (which it sounds like you don't), then it will work okay.

As long as you don't buy an Nvidia gigabit port...

[snipeman]

Thanks for everyone's responses. Gigabyte here I come...

[toricred]

Originally Posted by valnar

With your setup it looks like Realtek would be fine. Your CPU cycles may be a bit higher on your mobo and they won't go as fast as an Intel. They are not high performance NIC's, but if you don't do a lot of (UDP) streaming or really need more than 100Mb combined throughput (which it sounds like you don't), then it will work okay.

As long as you don't buy an Nvidia gigabit port...

I don't think you're being fair to the newer Realtek chipsets. I run 3 HD100's, 1 HD200 and 2 HDHR's with this board using one of the built-in NICs and have absolutely zero problems.

[scat]

When I rebuild my server to a WHS Server that is the board I plan to use.

[davephan]

If you still want a mainboard that has Marvell, the Asus Premium might be a choice (I am probably going to order it for my new replacement SageTV computer):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131326

The mainboard has quad 10/100/1000 network connections, 10 SATA, 10 USB, plus 4 internal USB. Most reviews are positive about the Asus Premium mainboard.

Dave

[valnar]

Originally Posted by toricred

I don't think you're being fair to the newer Realtek chipsets. I run 3 HD100's, 1 HD200 and 2 HDHR's with this board using one of the built-in NICs and have absolutely zero problems.

It's not about problems (well, sometimes), it's about performance. A Toyota Corolla doesn't have problems moving on a street, but a Ferrari will smoke it. A more apt analogy is a hardware RAID board vs software RAID. Both *do* RAID....but you get the idea.

UDP streaming is a big difference between them. Latency is another. Intel NIC's tend to have ASIC's which offload a lot of the packet processing. Realtek's rely on the CPU. With the OP's requirements and based on his hardware choices, I don't believe he would notice the difference.

If performance is important or you actually need to push that much bandwidth without hiccups, nothing beats a separate PCIe Intel gigabit adapter.

[Lucas]

I have the EP45-UD3 mobo with the same thernet chipset. I run 3 extenders and I have tested all 3 of them while also backing up my server disks to a NAS. No hickups no performance issues whatsoever.

Practically, the compatibility issues with of my legacy PCI tuners I had with the previous mobo have also disappeared so as far as stability goes, this mobo is highly recommended.

[HuMan321]

I have this board also. Only been up a week or so, but no problems. It is picky on RAM though if you run dual channel.

[snipeman]

Anything wrong with the Intel board then, especially if you don't want to overclock?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121348

Originally Posted by valnar

It's not about problems (well, sometimes), it's about performance. A Toyota Corolla doesn't have problems moving on a street, but a Ferrari will smoke it. A more apt analogy is a hardware RAID board vs software RAID. Both *do* RAID....but you get the idea.

UDP streaming is a big difference between them. Latency is another. Intel NIC's tend to have ASIC's which offload a lot of the packet processing. Realtek's rely on the CPU. With the OP's requirements and based on his hardware choices, I don't believe he would notice the difference.

If performance is important or you actually need to push that much bandwidth without hiccups, nothing beats a separate PCIe Intel gigabit adapter.

[valnar]

Originally Posted by snipeman

Anything wrong with the Intel board then, especially if you don't want to overclock?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813121348

I know one shouldn't go by NewEgg reviews, but it does seem to have some problems. The multitude of slots and Intel GigE makes it a good choice for a Sage server though if you get a good one. There is only one design flaw - I've read that it won't support Windows 2003 Server if that's your desire.

If you want something else with an Intel GigE onboard, I'd go with the Supermicro boards. They are rock solid, yet also do not support overclocking. Although if you find a board with everything else you want, I'd still recommend a separate Intel PCIe NIC.

[snipeman]

The Supermicro boards (at least the ones on Newegg) all seem to have built in video except for 1 which is $260.

The Asus board mentioned above by a poster was also more money, about $50 more than the Gigabyte. If price isn't any consideration this might be the best option out there.

I read some disturbing stuff on the Intel board including ironically people who had trouble with the built in Intel NIC and went with a PCI-E Intel NIC in a slot. This kills the Intel board for me, the only reason I'd have gone with it was to avoid Realtek.

All things considered for me personally I'm going to go with the Gigabyte board. It only cost $115, and Newegg has the Intel PCI-E NIC for $30. I'll run with the Realtek chipset and see what happens. If it fails the Sage test down the road I can add the Intel PCI-E NIC and keep it a server, or move the board to a client. It seems to be a popular well tested board.

[Taddeusz]

You have to take online comments with a grain of salt. Maybe use them as a slight basis for a decision but remember that you have no idea of the level of competency for the individuals making them. Even if they are competent there may have been extenuating circumstances that caused them to receive the results they did. You also have to realize that comments made online are more often than not from people who are either overly unsatisfied or overly satisfied with a product. However, mostly from the former rather than the latter. You generally don't get a good cross section of people who bought the product and were overall satisfied.

All that being said I am the proud owner of an Intel DP35DP motherboard and couldn't be happier with it. I don't overclock and would rather have a rock solid system rather than something that may or may not give me problems due to trying to push a processor or RAM past their intended speeds. IMHO, Intel boards are hands down the most rock solid I've ever used. The board I bought was at the time the most feature rich for the price. It's still running solid and in a couple months will be running Windows 7 RTM full time. Currently have it running on a secondary hard drive for testing and have zero issues.

[snipeman]

I agree 100% on the comments. If we didn't buy based on negative Newegg comments we'd never buy anything.

I used Intel boards all the time and my Sage server currently is running on one for over 5 years now. I'm running the D875PBZ and it works great.

Originally Posted by Taddeusz

You have to take online comments with a grain of salt. Maybe use them as a slight basis for a decision but remember that you have no idea of the level of competency for the individuals making them. Even if they are competent there may have been extenuating circumstances that caused them to receive the results they did. You also have to realize that comments made online are more often than not from people who are either overly unsatisfied or overly satisfied with a product. However, mostly from the former rather than the latter. You generally don't get a good cross section of people who bought the product and were overall satisfied.

All that being said I am the proud owner of an Intel DP35DP motherboard and couldn't be happier with it. I don't overclock and would rather have a rock solid system rather than something that may or may not give me problems due to trying to push a processor or RAM past their intended speeds. IMHO, Intel boards are hands down the most rock solid I've ever used. The board I bought was at the time the most feature rich for the price. It's still running solid and in a couple months will be running Windows 7 RTM full time. Currently have it running on a secondary hard drive for testing and have zero issues.

[toricred]

Whatever board you buy, go for the P45 chipset if using an intel chipset. It is more future proof and has a better SB associated with it.

[lpitman]

I am using the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P as my WHS-SageTV server running with 6 1-TB hard disks and streaming movies to an HD-200. Everything works great.
Next I am going to experiment with using the dual Ethernet connections provided on the board, right now I am just using one of the on-board nics.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by lpitman

I am using the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P as my WHS-SageTV server running with 6 1-TB hard disks and streaming movies to an HD-200. Everything works great.
Next I am going to experiment with using the dual Ethernet connections provided on the board, right now I am just using one of the on-board nics.

Experimenting with the dual ethernet is something I'm looking at doing also. I just got my EP45-UD3P up and running. I haven't installed SageTv yet, but will be doing it soon.
My hope is that I can use one of the ethernet connections to hook 2 HD HomeRuns directly to the machine via a 5 port switch. That way all of the HDHR network traffic doesn't needlessly go blazing over the rest of my network and just goes directly to SageTV and the drive pool in WHS.
Then the other ethernet connection can be used for just feeding the HD Extenders and any network traffic that SageTv needs to do like getting EPG data, etc.

[Cabalsan]

I have used this one for over a year now and it's been fairly rock steady!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128076

It's a GIGABYTE GA-945GCM-S2C LGA 775 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Intel with both a HVR1600 & 1250 and an E2180. Just a scosh of OC.

-Cab

*EDIT* Looks like its not sold any more. Last I saw it was around $35 bucks!