After an AM2+ mATX motherboard

[watercooled]

Any recommendations for a solid mATX AM2+ motherboard with onboard graphics? I'm having some compatibility problems with my Sapphire 780V board so I'm after a replacement.
Only real requirements are DDR2, socket AM2/2+, DVI out ideally, good MFR i.e. reliable, low power but I don't know of any power-hungry AMD chipsets anyway. I think that's everything but I can always post updates if I think of anything.
I know these boards are getting harder to come by but there are a few over at ebuyer, I'd also consider 2nd hand.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This MSI motherboard would do the job but is expensive IMHO:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...85gtm-e45.html

However,this Asrock motherboard which has the Nvidia 8200 chipset is around £43 and has DVI:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/249342

[watercooled]

That ASRock board looks the business, TYVM!

[Pob255]

the 8200 isn't quite as good as the 785g for the onboard graphics, still good enough for most onboard graphics uses though and AM2+ boards are thin on the ground now.

It might well be worth looking at going to AM3 if you've got an AM3 cpu, You can pick up 1gb ddr3 sticks for as little as £10-11 each
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128491 only pc3-8500 1066mhz (but is cas7 so it's actually faster than 1333mhz cas9) not much use for overclocking but if you only run it at stock speeds then it's fine
ok, you will be limited to only 2stick on most mATX boards but 2gb is fine for office/internet usage, if you're not gaming, video editing or similar memory intensive things then 2gb is not a problem.

[watercooled]

I have a 780V now but it's a second PC anyway, anything GPU-intensive I do on the PC in my spec. Video offloading and some indie-type games is about all I do on this PC, graphics-wise.

[Pob255]

Did an edit btw

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There is this el-cheapo 760G based motherboard for around £36:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/255208

It only supports CPUs with a TDP of 95W though.

AFAIK,the 8200 chipset has better support for media decoding than the 760G as the latter lacks UVD.

Here is a comparison of the 780G and 8200:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2640/2

The IGP in the 780G based motherboards runs at 500MHZ whereas the IGP in the 760G based motherboards run a 350MHZ.

Edit!!

Here is another comparison between the 8200 and 780G:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...t,1972-19.html

[Pob255]

The 9200/9300 was the real star of the nvidia chipsets, don't remember if they made one for amd platform though.

[watercooled]

Nope, got a 5050e CPU. Great little chip, got one not long before they were discontinued. It's just the motherboard I have is, err, strange - not being able to resume from standby is the biggest pain. It would take something special to make me buy Sapphire again - their support isn't entirely helpful, they're not quick and the replies are short and in Chinglish. Also the board/packaged stuff doesn't have that quality feel you get with a Gigabyte board.

[watercooled]

Ahh I was looking for a comparison just like that earlier. The 5050e has a 45w TDP so pretty much any board should be fine in that way.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 760G based motherboard I mentioned is AM3 so it will not work with your X2 5050e.

AFAIK,the IGPs in the 760G and 780V motherboards run at the same clockspeed.

[Pob255]

Must admit I was never impressed with the look of the sapphire (or xfx) motherboards, total lack of solid caps even on the power phases, exposed coils, they "look" like 5year old budget motherboards.

I'd say the ASRock 8200gf chipset is your best bet.

[watercooled]

Yeah, I regret it now but I was cutting costs where I could, I wrongly though the motherboard would be a safe place to cheap out (to a reasonable degree). I couldn't have saved more than £10-20 though, oh well I'll know for next time!
Edit: Hey CAT, you're spot on 1k thanks!

[scaryjim]

5050e is an AM2 (note the lack of +) processor so won't benefit from the faster HT speed of an AM2+ board, so why not cut to the chase and get a proper cheap AM2 mobo: £30 AM2 Biostar! If you live in / near Manchester Microdirect do the + version of that motherboard at a shade under £30, but probably only worth going with them if you can collect in person.

[watercooled]

Yeah good point, I did say AM2/2+ in the OP but only after saying AM2+ twice.
That Biostar is apparently an AM2+ board anyway, but what's the IGP like? I'm not all that familiar with Nvidia chipsets.

[scaryjim]

That Biostar is apparently an AM2+ board anyway ...

Don't be fooled by the marketing: it accepts AM2+ processors (after all, the socket and pinout is identical), but the chipset is AM2 so only supports HT1, not HT3. As I said though, that won't make any difference to a 5050e, which also only supports HT1!

The chipset is an entry level GeForce 7 solution, so fully DX9c compatible. It should be fine for running Win 7's Aero interface and some casual gaming: I used to have a laptop with the 6150 IGP and that ran games like Neverwinter Nights with decent settings at 1280x800 no problem. Unfortunately, however, a quick google indicates that the 7025 doesn't support PureVideo, so no hardware acceleration for your video. That alone may be enough to exclude it from your considerations. The Nvidia 8200 chipset has full support for PureVideo HD, so if you watch offloadable media on this machine that would probably be a better choice, tbh...