I am looking to set up a new system to be used mainly fro internet
surfing, text formatting, email and low level games.
What are "low level games"?
I have decided on an AMD 2.0 or 2.4 Mhz chip and now i am looking
for a perfect integrated motherboard to match it.
Current AMD motherboards are based around the following chipsets:
- nVidia nForce2
- SiS 746 FX (there may be a succesor to this one already)
- VIA KT400, KT400A, or KT600
The graphics should be very good
Current integrated graphics are:
- nVidia nForce2 (roughly equal to GF4 MX420 performance)
- SiS Xabre II
- ?? ATi Radeon ??
Personally, I wouldn't call these "very good" but it all depends of
what you expect from a videocard. Have a look at Tom's VGA charts on
www.tomshardware.com to get an impression of current videocard
performance, and to see what's good these days.
(to support the games - preferably >64Mb+)
The memory of onboard videocards is taken away from your installed
system memory. So if you have 512MB installed, you can assign 128MB to
the video, and leave 384MB for Windows and your programs.
Note that the nVidia nForce2 onboard video is the fastest onboard video
at he moment. And if you ARE going to go for this, make sure you get TWO
sticks of DDR memory so you can run your memory in Dual Channel mode -
if you don't your video performance will suffer (difference of about
40%).
All current motherboards have USB 2.0, onboard sound, LAN, Firewire,
etc.
The only things to note is that the nForce2 sound is supposed to be the
best of the onboard sound at the moment.
The biggest differences between boards nowadays is whether or not they
have two LAN onboard or just one, if they have SATA or not, and RAID or
not. If any of this is important to you, this is what to look out for
when choosing a motherboard.
Can you suggest anything please?
nForce2 motherboard with onboard graphics. For example:
- EPOX 8RGA+ (there may be a 8RGA2+ out now)
- Abit NF7-M (I think it was the -M with onboard video)
there are many more manufacturers that make boards similar to those, but
I recommend the above two.
Personally, I wouldn't take the onboard video route. I bought a Abit
NF7-S (nForce2, 6 Channel audio "soundstorm", SPDIF, Firewire, USB2.0,
SATA Raid). Because I don't have onboard VGA I dont have to buy two
sticks of memory to get decent video-performance but can make do with
one. With the money saved there ($20), and the price difference of NOT
getting a motherboard with onboard video ($30), I got a decent videocard
for $100 or so (GF4 Ti 4200).
Are there web sites with details on integrated motherboards?
Just use Google. For example, a search for "nForce2 motherboard review"
brings up lots of hits.
