Which AMD MB with integrated graphics?

[Pauli]

I am putting together a system for my brother and just want an AMD MB to use with a Barton, NO OVERCLOCKING. He has modest graphics needs and I think the GF4MX graphics on nForce2 MBs is good enough for now -- possibly getting a decent card down the road. I've seen a couple of recommendations for Albatron KM18G PRO 2.0, Shuttle MN31N, and Abit NF7-M. Anybody have experience with these or have other recommendations?

 

[bgeh]

Originally posted by: Pauli
I am putting together a system for my brother and just want an AMD MB to use with a Barton, NO OVERCLOCKING. He has modest graphics needs and I think the GF4MX graphics on nForce2 MBs is good enough for now -- possibly getting a decent card down the road. I've seen a couple of recommendations for Albatron KM18G PRO 2.0, Shuttle MN31N, and Abit NF7-M. Anybody have experience with these or have other recommendations?

i have built a rig for my aunt using the Abit NF7-M. no problems so far😎

 

[Vette73]

I would go with the Shuttle MN31N. It has the MCP-T southbridge so you get headers for Firewire and it has the soundstorm sound. It is now at $90 at newegg.com

 

[pspada]

But realize that the on-board graphics will at some point be obsolete. That's ok if the board has an AGP slot so you can pop in a video board, but some motherboards don't have the slot!

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I've built a couple of MN31N's and it's a great little board and you can get it for 84$ shipped with 10 CD-Rs included

 

[Peter]

Besides, you need to balance things. A Barton CPU will be twiddling thumbs almost all the time when paired with chipset integrated graphics. A lower CPU for half the money will be just as fast.

 

[Pauli]

Originally posted by: Peter
Besides, you need to balance things. A Barton CPU will be twiddling thumbs almost all the time when paired with chipset integrated graphics. A lower CPU for half the money will be just as fast.

Well, my brother will be primarily using the machine for AutoCAD. He said he has up to 4 complex drawings open at any given time. So, 3D graphics (framerates) is not an issue at all, but I still think he would benefit from the extra CPU power. Am I wrong with this assumption?

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: Pauli

Originally posted by: Peter
Besides, you need to balance things. A Barton CPU will be twiddling thumbs almost all the time when paired with chipset integrated graphics. A lower CPU for half the money will be just as fast.

Well, my brother will be primarily using the machine for AutoCAD. He said he has up to 4 complex drawings open at any given time. So, 3D graphics (framerates) is not an issue at all, but I still think he would benefit from the extra CPU power. Am I wrong with this assumption?

Yea the 512 L2 cache would prob. help him. But for games and other programs like that the 512 L2 cache would do no good. That and you can get a 2500+ Barton for less than $99 now. Change the Multiplier and it might get up to 3000+ range

 

[Peter]

In that case, where number crunching speed matters, you really shouldn't go with integrated graphics - this eats into RAM bandwidth quite massively, which is Not Good. Barton eases this a bit, but you'll be drastically better off with a graphics-less board and some outdated $25 Radeon-7000 or something with similarly good 2D display quality.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Originally posted by: Peter
In that case, where number crunching speed matters, you really shouldn't go with integrated graphics - this eats into RAM bandwidth quite massively, which is Not Good. Barton eases this a bit, but you'll be drastically better off with a graphics-less board and some outdated $25 Radeon-7000 or something with similarly good 2D display quality.

That's not necessarily the case with the NF2 IGP Peter, if you take a look at this page you'll notice that they say

Before we get to that, there's one other question that must be answered. One of the biggest drawbacks to older integrated graphics chipsets was that enabling the integrated graphics would reduce 2D performance by 5 - 15% over a conventional add-in graphics card. With the nForce2 IGP core based off of a GeForce4 MX and using NVIDIA's excellent driver set, would the same hold true here?

The conclusion: there's no performance drop in 2D when using the nForce2's IGP over a GeForce4 Ti 4600.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER

Originally posted by: Peter
In that case, where number crunching speed matters, you really shouldn't go with integrated graphics - this eats into RAM bandwidth quite massively, which is Not Good. Barton eases this a bit, but you'll be drastically better off with a graphics-less board and some outdated $25 Radeon-7000 or something with similarly good 2D display quality.

That's not necessarily the case with the NF2 IGP Peter, if you take a look at this page you'll notice that they say

Before we get to that, there's one other question that must be answered. One of the biggest drawbacks to older integrated graphics chipsets was that enabling the integrated graphics would reduce 2D performance by 5 - 15% over a conventional add-in graphics card. With the nForce2 IGP core based off of a GeForce4 MX and using NVIDIA's excellent driver set, would the same hold true here?

The conclusion: there's no performance drop in 2D when using the nForce2's IGP over a GeForce4 Ti 4600.

I was just about to say that. The nForce2 IGP has been built very well compared to older on-board video cards.

 

[Pauli]

Ok - I ordered the Shuttle board from newegg with Barton 2500+. I haven't put together an AMD system since I had a K6 200Mhz (8-10 years ago maybe?). Wish me luck...

 

[Doh!]

Good luck. You'll find the best support for nforce2 boards here at anantech forum.

 

[Peter]

I'm not talking about 2D graphics performance, I'm talking about CPU performance. And like it or not, the RAM bandwidth available to the CPU will always be lower when there is an integrated shared-memory graphics engine. Ain't no discussing that.

 

[pspada]

Integrated video = sucky performance + no upgrade path. End of story.

 

[Vette73]

Originally posted by: pspada
Integrated video = sucky performance + no upgrade path. End of story.

For a Intel computer yes, BUT the nForce IGP and KM266/KM400 chips have AGP ports so they can be upgraded.

 

[pspada]

True. But you still take the performance hit when using the video. I only use intergrated video on server machines that don't run GUIs on the console. And when I do run a GUI on these boxes, it's to export the video to my main box via VNC or the like, so the on-board video does not come into play.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: pspada
True. But you still take the performance hit when using the video. I only use intergrated video on server machines that don't run GUIs on the console. And when I do run a GUI on these boxes, it's to export the video to my main box via VNC or the like, so the on-board video does not come into play.

The thing is, the hit is not that huge with a NF2 board if you are running dual channel because two the DDR DIMMS provide way more bandwidth than an Athlon XP can utilize (an 800MHz FSB P4 is a different matter entirely). The dual channel architecture of the NF2 chipset was basically designed JUST for the purpose of allowing both the CPU and the IGP to have adequate memory bandwidth. In fact, with NF2 SPP boards with no onboard graphics, enabling dual channel raises the memory performance only about 5-10%, which translates into maybe a 1% overall system performance increase. Every review and benchmark I have read, including the link above, indicates that the NF2 has bandwidth to spare. Heck, even running both integrated video AND sound doesn't seem to drag the system down by any amount that can be easily perceived by the everyday user.

That said, a cheap Quadro card might be a good choice for your brother because it has special optimizations for AutoCAD and other professional Open GL apps that can be unlocked with the Powerdraft software at nVidia's website. The Quadro core has special features such as hardware anti-aliasing of wireframes that make them nice to workstation cards. ATi has a similar card called the Fire GL that is a bit cheaper, but seems to have equivalent features. I haven't tried either of these cards, though, so I can't say how well they work in real life use, but they could be useful for your brother. These professional Open GL cards do cost about double what an equivalent gaming card would cost, so I'd try out the NF2 IGP and see how that works for him before jumping into one of these guys.

 

[pspada]

So you are saying they've done a much better job with the on-board video than they did with the on-board sound? 'Cause the on-board sound is great - the few occasions when it keeps working properly for more than an hour or two, even so causing performance to suffer. Soundstorm? Sound$hitstorm is more like it.

 

[Pauli]

Originally posted by: batmanuel

Originally posted by: pspada
True. But you still take the performance hit when using the video. I only use intergrated video on server machines that don't run GUIs on the console. And when I do run a GUI on these boxes, it's to export the video to my main box via VNC or the like, so the on-board video does not come into play.

The thing is, the hit is not that huge with a NF2 board if you are running dual channel because two the DDR DIMMS provide way more bandwidth than an Athlon XP can utilize (an 800MHz FSB P4 is a different matter entirely). The dual channel architecture of the NF2 chipset was basically designed JUST for the purpose of allowing both the CPU and the IGP to have adequate memory bandwidth. In fact, with NF2 SPP boards with no onboard graphics, enabling dual channel raises the memory performance only about 5-10%, which translates into maybe a 1% overall system performance increase. Every review and benchmark I have read, including the link above, indicates that the NF2 has bandwidth to spare. Heck, even running both integrated video AND sound doesn't seem to drag the system down by any amount that can be easily perceived by the everyday user.

That said, a cheap Quadro card might be a good choice for your brother because it has special optimizations for AutoCAD and other professional Open GL apps that can be unlocked with the Powerdraft software at nVidia's website. The Quadro core has special features such as hardware anti-aliasing of wireframes that make them nice to workstation cards. ATi has a similar card called the Fire GL that is a bit cheaper, but seems to have equivalent features. I haven't tried either of these cards, though, so I can't say how well they work in real life use, but they could be useful for your brother. These professional Open GL cards do cost about double what an equivalent gaming card would cost, so I'd try out the NF2 IGP and see how that works for him before jumping into one of these guys.

Thanks for the tip about the Quadro. I imagine he'll be pleased for a while with the new system because he's using a Celeron 333 with 128MB RAM and 3dfx Voodoo 3000 video card right now. Even with the IGP, he'll be light years beyond what he is currently using. The Shuttle board has an AGP slot, so if the IGP is not cutting it, I'll suggest he get a Quadro card.

 

[batmanuel]

Originally posted by: pspada
So you are saying they've done a much better job with the on-board video than they did with the on-board sound? 'Cause the on-board sound is great - the few occasions when it keeps working properly for more than an hour or two, even so causing performance to suffer. Soundstorm? Sound$hitstorm is more like it.

Not been having any problems at all with the onboard sound on my A7N8X-D. I can play GTA:VC for hours with EAX on and no problems or loss of performance. I'll also have my MP3 player running for hours while also running some pretty processor intensive apps like Maya.
Right now, I'm playing MP3's with MMJB and my total processor usage is hanging between 5-10%. My friend who has a MSI NF2 IGP board is competely happy with the sound and video performance (and I've been over at his house playing multiplayer UT with him for hours on end). He has the standard MCP, not the MCP-T, so his isn't even the GOOD version of the onboard video. I don;t know what's been wrong with your nForce board, but all the two nForce boards I have had personal experience with have worked fine. The only problem I had was when I downloaded the faulty 2.41 and 2.42 drivers about a month ago. THOSE hosed my system pretty bad, but with the 2.03 drivers I've been doing fine.

 

[batmanuel]

Thanks for the tip about the Quadro. I imagine he'll be pleased for a while with the new system because he's using a Celeron 333 with 128MB RAM and 3dfx Voodoo 3000 video card right now. Even with the IGP, he'll be light years beyond what he is currently using. The Shuttle board has an AGP slot, so if the IGP is not cutting it, I'll suggest he get a Quadro card.

Another nice thing about the Shuttle MN31N is the dual VGA outputs. For anyone doing work with CAD or any other program that uses a LOT of floating toolbars and pallets, a second monitor is a real help with productivity. It doesn't have to be a GREAT monitor, either if it is just for toolbars and stuff. I have a cheap 15" that was given to me by a friend and it works great for getting all the toolbars out of my way when I am using Maya and Photoshop, so I can use the full display of my 19" for the model or picture I am working on. It really cuts down on the clutter and allows me to work faster and more efficently (especially when painting weights on a Maya model).