POLL: are you fedup with onboard cr@p?

[THUGSROOK]

personally im getting tired of being forced to buy this garbage ~ how about you?

 

[pulse8]

Yessir. It's becoming damn near impossible to find a good board with no onboard sound. LAN, USB and IEEE1394 ports I don't mind so much because the quality there is fine and I free up some PCI slots. It's the damn onboard video and sound that I hate.

 

[nemo160]

onboard lan and usb are fine as long as the chip backing them is of sufficient quality (stable and low cpu utilization), i hate onboard sound, and how many usb ports do you really need? i have 4 and use none..might use one once i get a new printer...but i'd rather have fewer built in components and knock 10-20 off the board price
onboard ide raid is good though, i'd like to see on onboard 4 channel raid setup that utilized a seperate hypertransport or vlink bus and clear up the pci bus some..there's a case where an integrated product could be quite superior

 

[XBoxLPU]

Originally posted by: nemo160
onboard lan and usb are fine as long as the chip backing them is of sufficient quality (stable and low cpu utilization), i hate onboard sound

Ditto

But not really fedup with the rest of the crap. Most motherboards have a lite version and a full version...

 

[THUGSROOK]

the P4b266-C was the last real "lite" version ive seen.

...isnt that what PCI slots are for?

 

[oldfart]

I dont mind most of it. I use 5 USB devices and would not buy a board without USB ports, or one where they did not work well. USB devices are so common, it would be crazy to build a board without them. Onboard video I could do without. Lan, I could go either way, same with firewire (I do use firewire also). For sound, I'd rather use my own sound card. If onboard sound is included, I'd prefer it be something decent like the C-Media Vs, the crummy AC97 stuff.

Its hard for me to imagine people have no need for USB ports. No printer, scanner, compact flash reader? No USB mouse? I no longer use the serial and parallel ports. Those can go away like Abit has done with some of their boards.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I really don't mind it. Though I wish there were more legacy-free boards. I use neither serial, parallel, or game ports. Onboard sound is sufficient for my purposes though (listening to music and occasionaly gaming). I use my PC for work more than anything else, so fast CPU and memory is what is important to me. Decent OpenGL acceleration is good for AutoCAD also. The rest, as they say, is just details.

 

[GrumpyMan]

I like the onboard LAN and USB 2.0, that's it.

 

[gaidin123]

I too am a fan of onboard LAN, integrated USB 2.0, and maybe even integrated ieee1394 like on some of the newer SiS chipsets(?). Onboard sound is a convenience for my non-gaming PCs but in the gaming one it always gets my SBLive. I recall seeing benchmarks showing that most onboard sound hurts framerates more than using Creative Labs' cards (haven't seen a review comparing the different chips/cards in a while though so maybe things have changed). I'm still using my Epox 8kha+ board which only has USB1 and integrated sound of some kind that has never been used. As long as Abit or someone still offers barebones motherboards with minimal integration I will buy those for my main PC, and integrated ones for budget/random boxes.

Onboard video again is a convenience I'd like to only see in budget OEM boards.

The one advantage of *some* onboard/integrated components is that they are not attached to the PCI bus and therefore effectively free up your PCI bus for your actual PCI cards. Yeah for most people this isn't very important but that 133MB/s is definitely one of the most limiting factors when it comes to I/O on current mainboards that lack 64bit PCI.

As for USB peripherals, I have a USB logitech mouse, USB2/firewire external drive case for a DVD burner or hard drive, camera cable, and cell phone charger. Oh there's a USB printer but that's on another PC. However only the mouse is connected 24/7...

Gaidin

Edit: Shouldn't this be in Motherboards?

 

[nemo160]

actually a lot of onboard stuff still uses the pci bus i think (at least the way its listed in the bios makes it seem that way to me)
sound and raid are listed as onboard pci devices on my 8k3a+

 

[THUGSROOK]

its nice to hear everyones opinion

Its hard for me to imagine people have no need for USB ports. No printer, scanner, compact flash reader? No USB mouse?

i dont use any of it ~ all i need are 2 ps2 ports and im good to go!

 

[THUGSROOK]

Edit: Shouldn't this be in Motherboards?

no ~ i wanted to hear the "overclockers" opinion
(plus most of us in here dont leave this room) :Q

 

[CrazySaint]

I like onboard sound (I use my headphones almost exclusively instead of my speakers (and they're crappy 5 year old 2.1s, anyway), so I don't need a fancy sound card), USB 2.0 and LAN (though NICs are so cheap that this is a minor plus). I don't care about RAID or Firewire either way, I don't care for integrated graphics. I don't like onboard graphics, the only reason I'm getting an i845G board is the 4:5 memory ratio.

Worthy of special mention in this thread is the nForce/nForce2 chipsets. It provides audigy (or better) level audio while simultaneously using fewer clock cycles and has a top qualitiy integrated NIC. The IGP version of the nForce2 chipset even provides enough graphics horsepower for the 3D weekend warrior (not to mention that onboard TwinView support). Pair that with top notch memory performance, 8X AGP, S-ATA, and FireWire and you've got an OEM's dream come true. Mention PCI/AGP/FSB busses that are independently adjustable and you'll have the OC'ers drooling, too.

 

[joe678]

i like onboard lan/sound on my k7s5a altho i dont use sound...

anyone know if using onboard lan slows down your computer? i would imagine it does to some degree however notthing noticeable...

 

[littlezipp]

Stop the insanity please...
I am the type of person that likes to buy the extra accessories.
On a motherboard that is going into an "E-machine," by all means throw on that crap, but for an enthusiast board, one that the owner will put in an Audigy Platinum (or the likes), it is simply a waste!

 

[spanky]

it's not that bad for me. i do not use it... but should my sblive die, i guess it wouldn't kill me to use onboard sound

 

[CheungMoKee]

onboard sound and video are the most useless things to me ... but things like onboard raid, lan, firewire, usb 2.0 are really nice acessories ... everyone has diff wants and needs for a sound and video card as new technology comes out every 3 months (1year for sound) ... hey ... that's just my opinion and speculation ;D

CheungMoKee

 

[bacillus]

Yes ~ im tired of it

 

[mastertech01]

I use the onboard sound, would use onboard Lan, but have no use for onboard RAID.. I use all SCSI. So thats a premium I could live without paying for.

 

[Wingznut]

I don't mind it at all. I'm utilizing a perfect example of the benefits of onboard sound... I just sold my sound card, and yet I'm still waiting for my new one to show up on my doorstep. Hence, I'm using onboard sound for a couple of days.

I can't possibly see a downside to onboard LAN, USB, Firewire, etc...

What's the downside of motherboards with "onboard cr@p", which can easily be disabled?

I'll bet that you are going to say "price." I'm not sure that's true, as motherboards (just like any other product) are priced at what the market can bear. If people wouldn't be willing to pay $150 for a board, they would have to price them lower, irregardless of the cost to them.

 

[CraigRT]

I would love the onboard cr@p if it was good quality parts. AC97 sound is not good enough, but onboard LAN works for me. I'd use it. seeing as we get used to stuff like onboard PS2 and serial, which weren't actually "on-board" back then, it's just a matter of another year or 2, and all of that cr@p will be standard

 

[DAPUNISHER]

It's dead even! 28 for, 28 against

 

[Thor86]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK


i dont use any of it ~ all i need are 2 ps2 ports and im good to go!

Long live ps2 ports! And I thought I was the only one still using em for my mouse and keyboard. I guess I can say I am an 'enthusiast' computer user, and never use onboard stuff. I like using high-end 'peripherals'. I only use onboard video and LAN for servers, and workstation desktops, but never for 'hardcore' gaming! I even use the ol legacy game port on my SB for my FF joystick.

 

[vladgur]

Originally posted by: gaidin123
I too am a fan of onboard LAN, integrated USB 2.0, and maybe even integrated ieee1394 like on some of the newer SiS chipsets(?). Onboard sound is a convenience for my non-gaming PCs but in the gaming one it always gets my SBLive. I recall seeing benchmarks showing that most onboard sound hurts framerates more than using Creative Labs' cards (haven't seen a review comparing the different chips/cards in a while though so maybe things have changed). q]

With a decent video card(Geforce3 ti200 or higher) you wont care about couple of frames per second difference in your game. Does it mater if it runs at 80fps or 75 fps?

 

[PhoenixOfWater]

I really would like to be able to buy my own Sound/Lan/Etc. I would buy much better stuff then what they give you... and be able to upgrade without buying a new mobo....