New to AMD...Building on a budget... best integrated graphics?

[Uncooked meat prior to state vector collapse]

I'm going to upgrade a system for a family member. I'm looking at integrated
video because the system will not be used for heavy gaming. I would however,
like to have DVD playback and support for lower end games.

Best AMD mobo with integrated graphics?

What would be the best CPU to go with? Looking for best price/performance
point.

I had tossed around the idea of getting a P4 because of my familiarity with
Intel, but have read many horror stories about the ATI P4R800VM boards and I
think I can make the $$$ go further in an AMD, despite having to settle for
lesser graphics.


tia!

 

[Dave C.]

I'm going to upgrade a system for a family member. I'm looking at integrated
video because the system will not be used for heavy gaming. I would however,
like to have DVD playback and support for lower end games.

Best AMD mobo with integrated graphics?

What would be the best CPU to go with? Looking for best price/performance
point.

Price/performance point is Athlon XP 2800+ at the moment. It is a 333FSB
processor. One really good mainboard for it would be the Biostar M7NCG Pro.
It's $88 bucks at Newegg. There are cheaper boards available, but not with
nforce2 chipset, Geforce4 MX Graphics (PLUS AGP slot!), 5 PCI expansion
slots, built-in lan, audio and firewire. (whew!) With all those features,
that price is cheap. Biostar is a good brand, too. They'd be third on my
list after Epox and AOpen. Soyo has a couple boards with good features for
less money, but you'd have to settle for via chipset and unichrome graphics.
Still, that's not too bad with an AGP slot available. But if you never plan
to upgrade graphics, you'd probably be happy with the Geforce4 MX graphics
of the Biostar board. I use that for gaming, but I'm not much of a gamer.
The Biostar board should work great for DVD playback and lower end games.
Don't skimp on RAM though. Go with minimum 512MB, and 1Gig highly
recommended. -Dave

 

[Gene Puhl]

I'm going to upgrade a system for a family member. I'm looking at
integrated video because the system will not be used for heavy gaming. I
would however, like to have DVD playback and support for lower end
games.

Best AMD mobo with integrated graphics?

What would be the best CPU to go with? Looking for best
price/performance point.

I had tossed around the idea of getting a P4 because of my familiarity
with Intel, but have read many horror stories about the ATI P4R800VM
boards and I think I can make the $$$ go further in an AMD, despite
having to settle for lesser graphics.


tia!

Nvidia chipset mobos are excellent. eg ASUS A7N8X-X
Do a Google on NVidia N-Force chipset mobos
Throw in a Barton chip and away you go.

 

[Uncooked meat prior to state vector collapse]

Nvidia chipset mobos are excellent. eg ASUS A7N8X-X
Do a Google on NVidia N-Force chipset mobos
Throw in a Barton chip and away you go.

Thank you both for your responses. I think I'll go for the Barton 2600 and
the Biostar board suggested by Dave. That should be more than enough for the
system while leaving me a bit of headroom for minor upgrading.