Leadtek K7CNR18G-Pro

[bigjim]

I'm looking to build a good el cheapo system, and I was quite enamored this mainboard, reviewed here in March. However, in the review it says there's a DVI port, yet on the Leadtek homepage it only mentions VGA. Is there a cable adapter included or did I miss something?

[Austin]

Well in some ways it would have made sense to give a DVI port and include a DVI-to-CRT convertor instead of just the std CRT but then most people only need/want CRT and it would have added around £5 to the mobo I guess. nForce2 IGP should be designed to take an add-in card which gives you TVout and presumably DVI too, just like you find on most GF4MX. I doubt many ever bundled these in though, and bundles often change from what reviewers get their hands on.

All is not lost though as a lot can change in 8 months. The onboard gfx are only good for very basic gaming so really there for std Windows stuff. You'd get a much better mobo by opting for a mobo without IGP and adding in your own gfx card which will easily fulfill your DVI requirement. You could then easily get a mobo certified to 400FSB and with MCPT/Soundstorm too. What do you want out of your new PC and hence a new mobo?

[bigjim]

Well, it's really supposed to be a cheap yet solid office/DVD/mp3 machine that I can upgrade later as needed. Basic gaming is more than enough , and I'm only planning to run a Duron 1.6GHz or so. I'd rather spend the extra cash on more memory, a fast harddrive and a nice TFT than raw processing and gaming power. Hence the DVI vs CRT question.

Here in Germany I'd save around 20Eur on a non-IGP board with similar features as the Leadtek, but I'd spend at least 50Eur on a low end gfx card with similar performance as the IGP solution. I'm not sure if a DVI port is worth the 30Eur difference. Unfortunately, I've only seen conflicting reviews as far as the DVI/CRT port is concerned and I was hoping someone here might know for certain.

thanks,
jim