Cheapy integrated graphics?

[hermeticist]

I know nothing about this end of the market, so any help would be much appreciated.

Basically, a replacement mini-atx `board, processor and ram is required by a FOAF, I`ve been looking at:

E1200 CPU

motherboards, 610/630 nvidia or g31, there may be others that I`m unaware of?

1GB RAM

I don`t have a problem with using AMD, just needs to be as cheap as possible......................Though, obviously, if a tenner seperates the chaff from the wheat..........

Many thanks!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The AMD 780G/790GX and Nvidia 8200/8300 are the best integrated graphics available currently.However they are only for AMD AM2 processors.The cheapest board containing either of them is on pre-order from Scan for around £40.

If you have the free postage from Scan you could get the following:


LN17135 1GB Micron Major, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5 £10.54
LN21825 Akasa Aluminium AK-865 Athlon 64/AM2/Phenom Heatsink inc retention clips and Lo Noise round 80mm fan £4.69
LN24344 Item currently awaiting an ETA. Asrock K10N78hSLI-GLAN, NF GF 8200, S AM2+, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR2 1066/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £40.08

Total:£55.31

Ebuyer have an OEM AMD X2 3600+ dual core for just under £27:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+ Socket AM2 1.9GHz 1MB L2 Cache OEM Processor 149016 £20.60
Shipping Charge: £2.58
Total: £26.79

So for a total of £82.10 you have a system that will be able to run HD stuff with no problems and even a few older games!

EDIT! Just realised you said mini-atx - do you mean micro-atx?? Scan also do the Abit A-S78H which costs £6.37 more and has faster AMD 780G graphics.

[DanceswithUnix]

If you want cheap then I would go for an Nvidia 6100/6150/630/7025 board. These are similar setups with either variations in graphics core clock speed (as if it mattered) and whether it is a single or 2 chips solution, but they are all much the same. Not as fast as the AMD740G/780G or Nvidia 8200 but you get a tenner to put towards a cheap graphics card in price difference

An ASUS one for 30 quid

A 40 quid 8200/740g motherboard should get you better power consumption if fan noise is important, gigabit ethernet if you have any use for it as well as about double the graphics performance. Thats 2x not much but should be enough for a game of WoW or Simms in low res.

Oh, the integrated graphics sucks memory bandwidth and I found on my 6150 based motherboard there was a huge leap in performance when I switched to a matched pair of dimms from a single dimm. Make sure you buy a matched pair.

[hermeticist]

Thanks for the replies.

Sorry, my mistake, micro atx.

CAT-THE-FIFTH`s suggestions sound good, what would other people suggest for say £80(ish)?

[hermeticist]

Sorry, meant to add that DanceswithUnix suggestions are very helpful too!

[hermeticist]

Arrghhhhhhhhh, needs to support IDE HDD and IDE opticals!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Abit board only has one IDE connector although you could use a two connector cable?

[hermeticist]

Doesn`t connecting an optical and an HDD on the same channel, make the PC run very slowly?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Most motherboards come with only one IDE connector nowadays as SATA seems to be the most commonly used standard.

[DanceswithUnix]

Doesn`t connecting an optical and an HDD on the same channel, make the PC run very slowly?

There was indeed a driver issue under Windows doing that. I say that as Linux never seemed to care. Perhaps Microsoft fixed it in the end? It was something silly like the CD-ROM driver turning off DMA on the channel it was on, hence turning off that feature on the hard drive as well.

Sadly 2xIDE interfaces seems to be an expensive luxury these days, so if you are gunning for cheap you will either end up lumping both devices onto a single cable or getting a cheap SATA DVD rom drive or perhaps a SATA to IDE adaptor (a tenner).

Have a link to a 16 quid CPU to keep you going though

[hermeticist]

Many thanks for everyone`s advice.

Went with the Abit 780G http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=845045

£46 with HDMI, 4 Dimm slots, 6 SATA, RAID!

The £16 AMD CPU & Akasa cooler (£4.80ish).

2 x 512MB of Ebuyer value RAM (£12ish - Super Talent with a sort of single sided heatsink).

& to overcome the EIDE issue: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=845045

400GB Hitachi SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB £32

Although ordered from two places, both things came next day (same van), both with free delivery.

I`d like to tell you what it`s like, but the person it was ordered for (who`d said they`d checked the PSU & it was fine) discovered that indeed it probably was a dead PSU after all!

Still, better than a Celeron........

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Scam were having some good budget PSUs on Today Only this weekend. They have a 350W FSP for £16.44,a Silverpower 400w(made by Tagan) for £19.96 and a s 350w Silverstone for £23.49. The offers should be valid for the next few hours so it maybe ordering a new PSU from them too!!

Even without the reductions the Silverpower 400w is good value for £21.54 delivered!

http://www.scan.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductId=13766

[hermeticist]

Certainly could have done with that!