C2D motherboard with onboard video

[Turin39789]

I am building a pc who's primary use will be general office tasks and photoshop/illustrator/quark work.

I had originally planned on doing a x2 3800 pc, 2gb of ram, but with conroe out im thinking I need to rethink my system and see if I can go conroe. I was planning on saving money by going with onboard video, as it should be good enough to push 2d. Are there good, stable and affordable options out there for a c2d motherboard with onboard video? Am I going to see a big enough gain over the 3800+ if I dont plan on overclocking?

 

[msi1337]

Gigabyte p96G-DS3 is a great option!

 

[msi1337]

Linked

 

[Turin39789]

Originally posted by: msi1337
Linked

Ouch, $147 thats going to bring the conroe combo over $300

 

[arctic388]

Turin39789 i am in the same boat as you and have asked on at least 4 forums and havent gotten a good recomendation yet.

i want a 6300 no overclocking, 1 gig, maybe 2 of RAM, maybe onboard video or maybe a 6200 card, etc just to build a simple, preferably stable, LOW budget system.

i'm almost to the point of just getting a AMD 3500 or a X2 3800 and not even messing with C2D "Conroe"

 

[jimmyj68]

NewEgg has six Intel boards with onboard video (G965), running from $107 -to- $135. Asus and Gigabyte have the more expensive G965 boards.

 

[2heaven]

I have the Asrock 775i65 board. It is mATX form factor with onboard video. However, it requires DDR (not DDR2) RAM. Also, it is not PCI-E, therefore upgradeability is pretty much non-existent.

 

[hans007]

the intel branded boards are great if you want decent onboard video. g965 will eventually have a full shader model 3 dx10 compliant driver in 4-5 months too.


i have the dg965ms and its great (microbtx)

if you wanna go real cheap, i 've heard the ecs p4m890t-m2 is decent. not quite as fast as a g965, but its $50 and a g965 is more like $115.

 

[arctic388]

thanks hans

now this might just be a "Budget" build

ECS P4M890T-M2 MOBO
6300 CPU
AMPX 512MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) System Memory (maybe 2 of these )
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3160811AS 160GB
and WIN XP

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: arctic388
thanks hans

now this might just be a "Budget" build

ECS P4M890T-M2 MOBO
6300 CPU
AMPX 512MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) System Memory (maybe 2 of these )
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3160811AS 160GB
and WIN XP

the ecs board is only single channel though, thats its main problem. it does take ddr400 or ddr2-533 though. there was a review of an asus version of that board / chipset and the performance difference is barely anything, since apparnetly the via faststream memory controller is really good,. but yeah for $49 its a much better choice than that p4m800 garbage agp board that frys always has. if you wanted to reaaaaly go budget, you could buy the board with say a celeron first for like $40 boxed and then upgrade later perhaps when the e4300 comes out next year.

 

[mjreddy]

Remember, fry's has that combo this week w/ the E6300 and an ECS mobo w/ onboard video for 180... at the least u could get the combo, see if that mobo is enough for you and get a diff one if its not... ur basically getting it for free...

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: mjreddy
Remember, fry's has that combo this week w/ the E6300 and an ECS mobo w/ onboard video for 180... at the least u could get the combo, see if that mobo is enough for you and get a diff one if its not... ur basically getting it for free...

yeah the frys mobo is very similar to the p4m890 its the p4m800pro ecs i think, the agp version basically.


i dont think it uses ddr2 either. i would recommend it only if you have a frys nearby. its only $1 less than the p4m890 one at newegg.