New cheapest socket 479 desktop board

[Zap]

Someone mentioned this in another forum.

MSI 915GM Speedster-FA4R Micro ATX $146 plus shipping

PRO:
Cheapest native socket 479 solution for Pentium M/Celeron M
Dual network (for those who are into it)
More audio jacks than you can shake a headphone at
SPDIF port
mATX
black is sexy and faster
can use DDR or DDR2
looks like can use "normal" socket 478 heatsink
PCI-E 16X baby!
passively cooled chipset
MSI brand (well known and respected)

CON:
Still kind of expensive
CPU socket in a bad spot, may interfere with hard drive bays in mATX tower cases and drive/optical bays in slim/desktop cases
Unknown (at this time) overclockability
Unknown (at this time, but unlikely) Speedstep abilities
MSI brand (some people consider it a warning label )

If this were under $100 and overclockable, pop in a new $90 Dothan Celeron M (or cheaper on eBay) and have a nice competitor to fit between socket 754 Sempron and socket 939.

 

[dwcal]

How will the supply of Pentium-M's be with the Core Duo out?

Even if the MB doesn't support Speedstep, you can do the same thing through software like RMClock if the CPU supports Speedstep (not the Celeron-M's). The only problem is that you have to be logged in as an administrator to run RMClock. Won't work with a limited user account.

It's good to have choices for a low-noise, low-power system, but the Turion + Socket754 MB combo will be tough to beat.

 

[MDE]

It's actually Socket 478 if you read the description.

 

[EatSpam]

Why does the x1 slot appear to be mounted further back than the x16?

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: MDE
It's actually Socket 478 if you read the description.

Picky picky.

Originally posted by: EatSpam
Why does the x1 slot appear to be mounted further back than the x16?

Optical illusion. Check out picture #3 where you see the board straight on, and you'll see it starts at the same point relative to each other and the PCI slots. In the first picture it does look like it's farther back.

Originally posted by: dwcal
How will the supply of Pentium-M's be with the Core Duo out?
...
It's good to have choices for a low-noise, low-power system, but the Turion + Socket754 MB combo will be tough to beat.

Supply should be good because the ultra low end notebooks are still using Celeron M, plus... eBay. I've seen Celeron M and Pentium M (especially lower end ones from upgrades) go for really cheap.

Yeah, Turion is tough to beat but it's almost a wash because at the same MHz they have roughly similar performance in most things, and Turion chips may cost more but the boards (if you find one that works with it) should cost less.

Like I said, if this board was overclockable and cost under $100...

 

[EatSpam]

Can't find any info on Core Duo support....anyone see anything?

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: EatSpam
Can't find any info on Core Duo support....anyone see anything?

Core Duo chips are most likely Socket 479 and require a newer chipset (945 variant?).

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: MDE

Originally posted by: EatSpam
Can't find any info on Core Duo support....anyone see anything?

Core Duo chips are most likely Socket 479 and require a newer chipset (945 variant?).

I thought the Core Duos were 478's ...

It seems kind of silly to release a board of this nature that doesn't support Core Duo/Solo. The Dothan Pentium-M core is getting old in the whole scheme of things.

 

[firewolfsm]

Pentium Ms can OC to 2.9 and you can just feed them more and more voltage, it could stack up to a 2.7GHz AMD

I would rather save up for the ATX AOpen one, it's about $60 more but worth it

 

[lithium726]

Core Duo wont work. Different pinout from Pentium-M.