Furthermore, it reduces latencies between high speed PC2700 (333MHz) memory given the processor and memory synchronous operation at 133MHz. The outcome of this is faster execution of instructions for daily active applications, hardcore games, graphic rendering, & multimedia encoding/decoding.

Mainstream

Performance

It supports Wi-Fi standard single band (802.11b), dual band (802.11a/b), dual mode (802.11b/g), and tri-mode (802.11a/b/g). With the multi-mode technology, it provides freedom and flexibility to work and play on the go.  It connects through wireless LAN networks at home, office, hotels, airports, or any location with Wi-Fi Alliance standard signal.  

• 10.4" x 10.5" (264.16mm)
• Up to 4 Expansion Slots
• Est. Arrival Q4, 2004
• Thermal Module Type I

• 12.8" x 10.5" (325.12mm)
• Up to 7 Expansion Slots
• Est. Arrival Q2, 2005
• Thermal Module Type I

• 8.0" x 10.5" (203.20mm)
• Up to 2 Expansion Slots
• Est. Arrival Q3, 2005
• Thermal Module Type II

• Hard Drives
• Memory 
• Optical drives
• Floppy drives

• PCI-express Video cards
• Other PCI and PCI-express cards
• Power Supplies (depending on case size and type)

• Onboard VGA
• LGA775
• DDR400
• 1 x PCI Express x16
• 1 x PCI Express x1
• LAN

• Onboard VGA
• LGA775
• DDR400
• 1 x PCI Express x16
• 1 x PCI Express x1
• Gigabit LAN

Preview - New Performance Features for SATA II

What's the real difference between SATA I and SATA II? The first one is the bandwidth or communication speed. 

SATA I: Support 1.5 Gb per second bandwidth

SATA II: Supports 3.0 Gb per second plus new features including Port multipliers, Port selectors and Native command queuing

But in addition SATA II will be better suited for enterprise environments because of three important features, port multipliers, port selectors and native command queuing:

Port Multipliers:

A Port Multiplier is a mechanism for one active host connection to communicate with multiple devices. A Port Multiplier can be thought of as a simple multiplexer where one active host connection is multiplexed to multiple device connections Only one active host connection to the Port Multiplier is supported. The Port Multiplier is an adaptable design that supports up to 15 device connections and utilizes the full bandwidth of the host connection. Although this is less than the number of drives that can be connected using Fiber Channel or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), this will make it much easier to build disk enclosures using SATA drives.

Port Selectors:

Port selectors will allow two hosts to be connected to one drive. This is useful because it creates a redundant connection to the disk drive. In this way if one of the hosts has a failure, the second host, acting as a spare, can take over and access to the storage is maintained. This sort of redundancy is essential for enterprise environments.

Native Command Queuing (NCQ):

Native command queuing will improve the performance and efficiency of SATA II drives. Normally commands will arrive at a disk to read or write from different locations on the disk. When commands are executed in the order they arrive, a great deal of mechanical overhead is created when the read/write head is constantly being repositioned. SATA II drives will use an algorithm to determine the most efficient order to execute commands, which creates the least mechanical overhead. In this way native command queuing will improve the performance of SATA II.

Command queuing, as its name suggests, allows commands to be queued up, read and reordered before the driver acts upon data. The technology was defined as early as the ATA-4 specification, with the host controller determining the order of the commands to process. Native command queuing, part of the Serial ATA specification, allows up to 32 instructions to be queued and reordered by the hard disk controller itself.

Native Command Queuing (NCQ)

NCQ is designed to improve performance and reliability as the transactional workload increases - When your application sends multiple commands to your drive, your drive can optimize the completion of these commands to reduce mechanical workload and improve performance.

• NCQ works in all systems supporting SATA NCQ from desktop PCs, workstations; digital media content servers, entry servers to high performance PCs and mobile/notebook systems.
   
• NCQ allows the device to reorder commands for more efficient data transfers.
   
• Devices that support NCQ are 100% backward compatible with non-NCQ supporting systems.

SATA II also introduce an external connector interface. Here is the external single lane connector. The external cable connector is a shielded version of the connector specified in SATA 1.0a with these basic differences:

• The External connector has no “L” shaped key, and the guide features are vertically offset and reduced in size. This prevents the use of unshielded internal cables in external applications.
   

• To prevent ESD damage, the insertion depth is increased from 5mm to 6.6mm and the contacts are mounted further back in both the receptacle and plug.
   

• To provide EMI protection and meet FCC and CE emission requirements, the cable has an extra layer of shielding, and the connectors have metal contact points.
   

• There are springs as retention features built into the connector shield on both the top and bottom surfaces.

The external connector and cable are designed for over five thousand insertions and removals while the internal connector is only specified to withstand fifty insertions.

The drives include another key feature of SATA II, staggered spin-up. Staggered, or delayed, spin-up enables the host to individually “spin-up” drives in multi-drive configurations. This reduces the power draw of a booting system, enabling system designers to reduce the size of the power supply and minimize the total cost of ownership for end-users.