AMD Onboard video expertise

[Brutus04]

My wife is currently using an HP 17’ laptop with an AMD Turion 64X2 dual-core. I want to build a machine for Photo-journaling, surfing, Facebook; no gaming. I have not used AMD in a while and wondering if anyone here can speak on the onboard graphic capabilities of the newer CPUs. I am looking at a Phenom Quad-core of some kind. Will the onboard video be sufficient for having several windows of pictures open? ...Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[veri745]

Yes, the 790GX and 890GX chipsets (3200 and 4200 IGP) should work fine for 2d and basic 3d graphics and photo viewing/editing.

Are you trying to use your wife's laptop or build a new machine? The OP isn't quite clear on that.

 

[BD231]

Just built a PII x3 system with integrated 4250 for someone, I was impressed. Overclocked to 3600mhz and DDR3 1600 this card is able to handle *any* recent gaming title at low resolution with ease. It also delivers a very clean picture no matter what you're doing.

I saw pretty substantial drop offs in frame rates going to DDR3 1333 from DDR3 1600 on the 4250. Most likely due to the fact that these cards feed off your system memory, but something to note if you want to get the most out of an integrated video solution.

With 4gigs of DDR3 1600 and a decent overclock on a Phenom II core (all cache available, can't say for Athlons or Semprons) these cards pack quite the punch. Surround the card with fast parts and your wife would never know the difference.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I saw pretty substantial drop offs in frame rates going to DDR3 1333 from DDR3 1600 on the 4250. Most likely due to the fact that these cards feed off your system memory, but something to note if you want to get the most out of an integrated video solution.

That's interesting. I built a desktop rig based on an ASRock 785G board with sideport memory, and in testing the IGP, I got 10,000 3DMark01 in single-channel, and 10,500 3DMark01 in dual-channel. So if there was that little difference in performance between single- and dual-channel, I really hestitate to say if you would have seen much difference between DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1600.

Are you sure the difference wasn't down to the RAM speed, but the difference in terms of other clocks, ie, you had to overclock some settings to get DDR3-1600 to work at that speed, since it's not natively supported.

 

[Vette73]

My wife is currently using an HP 17’ laptop with an AMD Turion 64X2 dual-core. I want to build a machine for Photo-journaling, surfing, Facebook; no gaming. I have not used AMD in a while and wondering if anyone here can speak on the onboard graphic capabilities of the newer CPUs. I am looking at a Phenom Quad-core of some kind. Will the onboard video be sufficient for having several windows of pictures open? ...Thanks in advance for the help!

I just built a HTPC with a older 785 chipset (4200 video) It works great.

Get the newwer chipset like the 890g with DDR3 memory and that should work great.

 

[Brutus04]

Are you trying to use your wife's laptop or build a new machine? The OP isn't quite clear on that.

I am planning on building a new desktop...sorry, and Thanks for the reply!

 

[BD231]

That's interesting. I built a desktop rig based on an ASRock 785G board with sideport memory, and in testing the IGP, I got 10,000 3DMark01 in single-channel, and 10,500 3DMark01 in dual-channel. So if there was that little difference in performance between single- and dual-channel, I really hestitate to say if you would have seen much difference between DDR3-1333 and DDR3-1600.

Are you sure the difference wasn't down to the RAM speed, but the difference in terms of other clocks, ie, you had to overclock some settings to get DDR3-1600 to work at that speed, since it's not natively supported.

More a visual observation, games were more choppy on 1333 but that's just my take. I ran in dual channel on both clocks.

 

[Brutus04]

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for the feedback! Gonna go with AMD on this one...

V/r, Brutus