Need advice choosing Mobo for my CarPc

[KingCobra]

Hi folks, I have been away for a while, last time I did upgrade was over a year ago, a lot has changed since.

I am in the process of upgrading my CarPc, I have been using Asus for so many years and feel comfortable with them.

I am looking for a Micro ATX from Asus matched with AMD mobile CPU and hopefully an AGP slot. I like to be able to run my GPS SW all the time while in the mean time playing mp3 & CDs, and occasionally, watch a DVD while waiting for the wife to finish shopping, So, I need something that is decently powerful but not necessarily geared towards games.

Any advice will highly be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[joelslaw]

try this on for size
http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec....A7V400-MX&langs=09
not really sure where to buy, but i'll leave that to you.

Oh, btw i hate you!!! (out of jealousy, of coarse) car pc, that is money!

 

[KingCobra]

Excuse the ignorance, would this accept XP mobile?

 

[joelslaw]

from what I understand, the only diff between a standard chip and a mobile chip (in most cases) is the voltage requirement. that is why people like mobile chips for overclocking. but just to be sure, can anyone else confirm that?

 

[Peter]

Voltage requirement, AND the necessity for the board's BIOS to support the live speed and voltage switching, aka PowerNow!. Also, the "low power" mobile Athlons are in a physically smaller package, which won't fit standard sockets.

Why not use a VIA EPIA M-series board and be done with it? Runs extremely cool and low power, is fast enough for everything 2D media, and is a lot smaller than MicroATX.

 

[KingCobra]

Originally posted by: Peter
Why not use a VIA EPIA M-series board and be done with it? Runs extremely cool and low power, is fast enough for everything 2D media, and is a lot smaller than MicroATX.

I need the ability to add video card with TV out through a PGA slot . The driver will have GPS SW for navigation on VGA screen while passengers should have the ability to watch movies on another display, NTSC.
I don't think there is a pci video card with tv out.
The reason I am thinking about XP mobile is that, the amount of heat is low so serious cooling is not required.

 

[joelslaw]

yo pete, i looked around and a lot of people are useing mobile xp's with regular socket A boards? Were you saying that there are 2 kins of XP-m's and that the "low power" ones won't fit a regular socket A?

n e way, I found this 2500 mobile at new egg. From what all the reviews say it should work with any socket A (ie the asus board I suggested above, or any socket A you like for that matter)
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...=19-103-401&depa=0

 

[Peter]

There are THREE kinds of mobile Athlon-XP: "Desktop Replacement", "Standard" and "Low Power". The latter ones aren't socket-A form factor, and the DTR ones don't have PowerNow! at all IIRC, just a slightly lower power consumption than the standard desktop flavor. So the "standard mobile" version would be the best choice for a desktop board that _does_ support the mobile processors.

KingCobra, the EPIA-M boards do have TV-out from the integrated VGA already, and they're dualhead capable. No need for a graphics card at all (and besides, yes of course there would be PCI cards that do this).

 

[joelslaw]

thank for the info pete, guess you learn something new everyday. (and if you belong to this forum, probably more than one thing )

 

[KingCobra]

Thanks Peter, appreciate your help.

One final question please, Would the EPIA-M handle GPS mapping SW and play music or DVD at the same time without taxing the CPU?

 

[Peter]

The graphics engine in the CLE266 chipset does have DVD decoding hardware, so CPU load should be fairly low. GPS mapping isn't rocket science either, so yes, I'd anticipate this to work fine. Audio replay is not going to make any halfway current CPU and chipset sweat either.

 

[KingCobra]

Thanks again Peter.

 

[ChineseDemocracyGNR]

You may have a problem with that motherboard as it's missing multiplier adjustments, and chances are it will set 6x as the default multiplier.

On a VIA or SiS board you can adjust the multiplier with a software like CPUMSR on Windows. No such luck on nForce though.