Last message on previous page:

Why would you be using 4 xeons? I take it you mean 2 5310s? Other than that it looks great. Really nice if I do say so myself. Now, any idea of an OS?
For one thing you do not want to use a pci sata card pci-e or pci-x is better.
and you can get dual cpu amd board with HARDWARE SAS raid and SLI with 2 full x16 slots for $300 less and it uses cheaper ddr2 ecc ram.

but can I get the same performace for rendering with the AMDs?

No. But that Tyan Tempest board you have has two PCIe slots with x4 signals as well as a 133 MHz PCI-X slot. So I'd look at PCIe x4 or PCI-X SATA controller cards over a PCI card. The Promise TX4 is simply a 4-port SATA interface with no hardware RAID controlling abilities. I'd suggest something like HighPoint's RocketRAID 2310 if you want an inexpensive 4-port SATA PCIe controller. Like the Promise, it has no hardware RAID functions, but the HighPoint unit has 1 GB/sec bus bandwidth versus the Promise's 133 MB/sec. As such, the 2310 makes a good controller if you do not want to use the card's onboard RAID functions and instead use OS-based software RAID of use the disks independently. I use Linux md RAID to run my 3-disk RAID 5 that's connected to the HighPoint controller and it works great. Supposedly using the card's RAID functionality uses a bit more CPU than Linux md does but performance is still pretty good.

I don't really want to spend much on the SATA card nor do I need or want anything apart from my two raptors on RAID (system drive). The drives I will be attaching to the extra card will just be storage drives, I don't even really need them to be high speed. I was only looking to spend less than $150AUD on the card. I have seen the 2310 for about $230 which is a bit more than I wanted to spend.

I suppose computer parts in Australia are a bit more expensive than they are in the U.S. At today's exchange rates, a HPT 2310 here costs AU$180, not AU$230. You can't get a non-PCI 4-port SATA controller for less than about AU$160, so I suppose that you could perhaps get that PCI card as long as you don't think that you'll be accessing more than 2 drives at once. Or you could get a pair of PCIe x1 2-port cards for about AU$70-80.

Is that $70-80 ea. or for 2? eaither way is that the same brand again just a different model?

That would be for two. The price for a PCIe x1 2-port SATA card built on the ubiquitous Sil3132 chip is about US$30. Here is an example. two of those would be US$60, which would be AU$78.

getting those two cards looks like a better option for me, thanks for the help

that board has 6 sata and 8 sas ports so you do not need a sata card.

SAS can use sata disk so run you raid off of that.

You realise you can OC those Clovers to 2.4 GHZ right??? http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=77937

Why not get 5320s?

I am not too clear on the SAS thing, I thought that was some kind of SCSI connector

The 5320s are about $200+ ea. than the 5310s and with only 200mhz (yeah?) difference it didn't seem worth it. I am already pushing my budget, and with little difference in performance I don't think its worth the ~$400

I have seen the overclocking thread and I do intened to try overclocking