Do you know "big" motherboards which work well with GS?

[sirbellog]

I plan to update my P3 tower with a new motherboard + P4 engine.
Before going ahead, I tried to precisely define my needs, and here they are :
- raid (for access to as many drives as possible)
- firewire (for video-capturing)
- lan (I look forward to sharing midi -and other-data with my 2nd PC, via MidiReplicator).
- usb (for interface, printer, Logic Audio key...)
So all that apparently calls for a \"big\" integrated motherboard, because if I fill up PCI slots with cards for ide, lan, and firewire, it will likely make life for my soundcard much more difficult....
SO, do you guys successfully use this kind of \"everything-motherboard\" with Giga ?
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(BTW, talking about PCI, if somebody is able to explain why in hell motherboards have 5 or 6 slots, while in practice you can use just 1 -or2- before conflict troubles, he\'ll be welcome....)

[kptkarl]

I believe ABIT may have what you require. Take a look for model IT7. It has firewire,USB 1 and 2,LAN and RAID. Its very very new so I\'m sure no one has tested it with GIGA but it sure looks promising.

[sirbellog]

Yes, I noticed that Abit motherboard which seems to have everything I\'d need....
That\'s precisely the reason why I posted :
I do know such things exist. What I do not know is their compatibility to Giga !
So, any pionneer, around here ?

[John Matrix]

OK Sirbellog- don\'t wanna sound like a smarta§§. But - if you like many HDD\'s why don\'t you go for ultra160 = 16 drives. Regarding integrated MB\'s, it makes no diff, an integrated sound card, video, scsi card, lan etc. just occupies one more PCI - sorry dude.