Motherboard

[Lee1976]

Are integrated motherboards worth buying? I was thinking of getting the Pcchips 810lmr. Please let me know what you think on this subject.

[Joe]

If you are talking about mobos with itegrated sound, and video etc are any good.. I would say yes, and no

Most integrated sound is more than enough for the average user.

Your bottleneck would most likely be the video depending on what you do...

If you play demanding games your probably not going be satisfied with the video thats in there.

on the same token, if you only browse the web, maybe watch a few movies you will most likely be fine.

-0-

Try researching the quality of the integrated parts on that board..

[Lee1976]

I will be using the motherboard for surfing the web, Office packages, and the occasional game. The most demanding game I play is Champ manager .

[terrancelam]

What processor do you have in mind? I suggest a PIII or P4 cpu along with the asus cvu4x-E (It has on-board sound) along with a PIII if your going to be using office applications with it. You should however buy your own AGP interface vid card if you plan on a little gaming. A geforce 2mx 400 or an ATI Radeon 32mb DDR would do you fine for gaming.

[Brent]

Is that mobo based on the i810 ? If so that's SUCKY

get an i815 board at least!

the i810 and it's on board video sucks the monkey balls

For you it does sound like an Integrated solution will work GREAT for you, but just get something a tad bit better then the i810, go for an i815 based mobo and real P3 CPU that should do you fine for what you do....

[YARDofSTUF]

Originally posted by Brent
the i810 and it's on board video sucks the monkey balls

i have a system with the i810 board DONT BUY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it sucks sooo much the sound it crap too, if ur playing a game like UT or quake it misses sounds and skips like crazy, personally i hate intgrated stuff

[YeOldeStonecat]

I can't stand integrated sound or video or NIC....and if you say you only game a little bit now, what if down the road you decide to upgrade components for some better gaming. Yeah you can disable them in BIOS, but...blech.

Also, for reliability. If an integrated components fails in your all in one motherboard...you're more likely to be dead in the water until you get a replacement mobo. If you have separate components, and one fails, you can quickly swap it out, and back in business.

Integrated components are also more likely to deliver an electronic blow to the system board than a PCI card, which many times I've seen the PCI card terminate the surge, replacing the card brings it back online. Integrated components are more likely to toast the rest of the motherboard. This being relavent to NICs and modems.

That new nVidia nForce integrated video might be OK for the casual gamer.

[sattien]

Try to stay away from PCChips motherboards. I used to work in a hardware retail store and have seen all kinds of erratic behaviors of PCChips boards. And I haven't mentioned the below-average performance, garbage on-board components and the occassionally misplaced drivers CD.
Also if you buy anything with on-board VGA, you are very likely to run into those that need to share memory with your RAM, and not only that, some even require that you install your RAM stick into a particular DIMM slot so that they can read and share your RAM, or you won't be able to boot.
Oh and all-in-one mobos usually have much less available expansion slots than conventional ones. For instance, those with on-board VGA mostly comes without an AGP slot (I have yet to see one that does), making graphics card upgrades impossible.

[viperuk]

If you are looking for a good Mobo the Abit KT7 is very good and the RAID version is even better. I also prefer the AMD Athlon chips, less money and faster.

I would stay away from sound and graphics on board as I feel it always end up being a false economy.

However it all depends what you are planing to use the PC for. If it's just surfing the web, using Word or doing an e mail it won't matter. However, if you are playing games or want to use to for music spend the extra money on the cards.

[Gaming-Module]

Do yourself a favor man.

BUY YOUR OWN SOUND AND VIDEO BOARDS!!!1

All you have to do is plug em in and install a couple of drivers and whamo! You are set and you have room to cheaply increase the performance of your system at a fraction of the cost of an entire system overhaul in the near or distant future.

[AMPLIFRIER]

i am a firm believer in having dedicated cards for everything

integrated eats more system resources


do youself a favor and dont get integrated

AMP