In the Market for a New System

My current system is three years old and just recently I had my AGP video
card die on me. This got me to thinking about a new system. I have had good
history with Gigabyte and was hoping the group could recommend a new
motherboard?

I don't need a gaming system as I will be running Office and Digital Camera
applications. However I do want a system that hums. My new system will have a
1tb internal, 1tb esata drive, 4gigs of memory. I'm not sure what video card
to get yet, so I would welcome any advice in that regard also.

What I'm confused about is what CPU and chipset I should go with and what
type of video card interface should be on the motherboard.

4GB memory, then you will be using Vista?

"Cloaked" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
> My current system is three years old and just recently I had my AGP video
> card die on me. This got me to thinking about a new system. I have had
> good
> history with Gigabyte and was hoping the group could recommend a new
> motherboard?
>
> I don't need a gaming system as I will be running Office and Digital
> Camera
> applications. However I do want a system that hums. My new system will
> have a
> 1tb internal, 1tb esata drive, 4gigs of memory. I'm not sure what video
> card
> to get yet, so I would welcome any advice in that regard also.
>
> What I'm confused about is what CPU and chipset I should go with and what
> type of video card interface should be on the motherboard.
>

Cloaked wrote:
> My current system is three years old and just recently I had my AGP video
> card die on me. This got me to thinking about a new system. I have had good
> history with Gigabyte and was hoping the group could recommend a new
> motherboard?
>
> I don't need a gaming system as I will be running Office and Digital Camera
> applications. However I do want a system that hums. My new system will have a
> 1tb internal, 1tb esata drive, 4gigs of memory. I'm not sure what video card
> to get yet, so I would welcome any advice in that regard also.
>
> What I'm confused about is what CPU and chipset I should go with and what
> type of video card interface should be on the motherboard.
>

For the video card, something in PCI Express should do. PCI Express x16 come
in version 1 (4GB/sec) and version 2 (8GB/sec) and they're backward compatible,
so you can mix motherboard and video card, mostly without a problem.

A video card anywhere from $50 to $100, should give you the connectors,
adapters, and enough horsepower for Vista Aero if you want. Gaming is what
uses the more expensive cards to better effect. I'd select a card with
two DVI connectors, and two DVI-to-VGA passive dongles, so that I could
use any two monitors I wanted.

A P43/P45 chipset board should handle most Intel processors. P43 supports
one big PCI Express slot, while P45 combined with some small jelly bean chips,
gives two big slots. (On P45, when only one slot is used, it runs at x16.
If both slots are used, the slots run at x8. The jelly beans take the place
of a paddle card which might have been used in a previous generation of
motherboard with dual slots. The paddle card used to "rewire" the slots
as desired by the user. The jelly beans do that automatically now.)

So a P45 with a Core2 Quad or Core2 Dual, would be a place to start. One
big slot could be used for your video card, and the second for some future
RAID card perhaps.

On the AMD side, you can get some motherboards with integrated graphics,
and the combination of a cheap dual or quad core there, will give you
a system at a lower total price. The board will also have at least one
PCI Express x16 slot, for a video card upgrade when you're ready. But for
an entry level system without graphics card, some of the <$100 motherboards
allow a pretty cheap upgrade to be had.

For memory types, DDR2 and DDR3 are current types. DDR2 is dirt cheap.
I've seen 4GB for $40 recently. DDR3 is more expensive, and is available
in higher overall clock speeds. Latency wise, they're not much different,
but the DDR3 might be coaxed to a higher overall bandwidth. The difference
is something you measure with benchmarks, but not usually in real applications.

Intel has the Core i7, where they move the memory controller to the processor
(just like AMD). The processor is triple channel in that case, and limited
to DDR3 memory. So the combination of a more expensive motherboard (because
they can charge for it), the processor, and three sticks of DDR3, tends to
push up the final system price. People are buying them, but percentage wise
it isn't a high runner right now.

These would be more mainstream choices.

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA775 FSB1333 95W Quad-Core $275
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115041

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core $165
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037

AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz 4x512KB L2, 6MB L3 Cache, Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition $225
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103471

AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core $109
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103228

AM2 and AM2+ use DDR2. AM3 uses DDR3 and there aren't a lot of those yet.
For the Core2 ones, the motherboard design determines the RAM type. So
you can have your Core2 with DDR2 or DDR3 if you want. With AMD, the
processor determines the memory type. AM2+ is distinguished by allowing
DDR2-1066 memory (2 sticks only at that speed), and splitting the processor
into two power planes. The motherboard may be labeled AM2/AM2+ indicating
it can use either, which means an upgrade might be possible if you start
with a low end ($60) processor.

With the low price of some of the RAM types, wasting a little doesn't matter :-)

Have fun,
Paul

"Paul" <> wrote in message
news:gq92mf$ig2$...
> Cloaked wrote:
>> My current system is three years old and just recently I had my AGP video
>> card die on me. This got me to thinking about a new system. I have had good
>> history with Gigabyte and was hoping the group could recommend a new
>> motherboard?
>>
>> I don't need a gaming system as I will be running Office and Digital Camera
>> applications. However I do want a system that hums. My new system will
have a
>> 1tb internal, 1tb esata drive, 4gigs of memory. I'm not sure what video
card
>> to get yet, so I would welcome any advice in that regard also.
>>
>> What I'm confused about is what CPU and chipset I should go with and what
>> type of video card interface should be on the motherboard.
>>
>
> For the video card, something in PCI Express should do. PCI Express x16 come
> in version 1 (4GB/sec) and version 2 (8GB/sec) and they're backward compatible,
> so you can mix motherboard and video card, mostly without a problem.
>
> A video card anywhere from $50 to $100, should give you the connectors,
> adapters, and enough horsepower for Vista Aero if you want. Gaming is what
> uses the more expensive cards to better effect. I'd select a card with
> two DVI connectors, and two DVI-to-VGA passive dongles, so that I could
> use any two monitors I wanted.
>
> A P43/P45 chipset board should handle most Intel processors. P43 supports
> one big PCI Express slot, while P45 combined with some small jelly bean chips,
> gives two big slots. (On P45, when only one slot is used, it runs at x16.
> If both slots are used, the slots run at x8. The jelly beans take the place
> of a paddle card which might have been used in a previous generation of
> motherboard with dual slots. The paddle card used to "rewire" the slots
> as desired by the user. The jelly beans do that automatically now.)
>
> So a P45 with a Core2 Quad or Core2 Dual, would be a place to start. One
> big slot could be used for your video card, and the second for some future
> RAID card perhaps.
>
> On the AMD side, you can get some motherboards with integrated graphics,
> and the combination of a cheap dual or quad core there, will give you
> a system at a lower total price. The board will also have at least one
> PCI Express x16 slot, for a video card upgrade when you're ready. But for
> an entry level system without graphics card, some of the <$100 motherboards
> allow a pretty cheap upgrade to be had.
>
> For memory types, DDR2 and DDR3 are current types. DDR2 is dirt cheap.
> I've seen 4GB for $40 recently. DDR3 is more expensive, and is available
> in higher overall clock speeds. Latency wise, they're not much different,
> but the DDR3 might be coaxed to a higher overall bandwidth. The difference
> is something you measure with benchmarks, but not usually in real applications.
>
> Intel has the Core i7, where they move the memory controller to the processor
> (just like AMD). The processor is triple channel in that case, and limited
> to DDR3 memory. So the combination of a more expensive motherboard (because
> they can charge for it), the processor, and three sticks of DDR3, tends to
> push up the final system price. People are buying them, but percentage wise
> it isn't a high runner right now.
>
> These would be more mainstream choices.
>
> Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA775 FSB1333 95W Quad-Core $275
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115041
>
> Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core $165
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115037
>
> AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz 4x512KB L2, 6MB L3 Cache, Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition $225
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103471
>
> AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz Socket AM2 125W Dual-Core $109
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103228
>
> AM2 and AM2+ use DDR2. AM3 uses DDR3 and there aren't a lot of those yet.
> For the Core2 ones, the motherboard design determines the RAM type. So
> you can have your Core2 with DDR2 or DDR3 if you want. With AMD, the
> processor determines the memory type. AM2+ is distinguished by allowing
> DDR2-1066 memory (2 sticks only at that speed), and splitting the processor
> into two power planes. The motherboard may be labeled AM2/AM2+ indicating
> it can use either, which means an upgrade might be possible if you start
> with a low end ($60) processor.
>
> With the low price of some of the RAM types, wasting a little doesn't matter :-)
>
> Have fun,
> Paul

Paul thanks for the detailed response. This gives me some ideas to work with.
Is there a specific Gigabyte motherboard that you would recommend using the
AMD chip?

Cloaked wrote:

>
> Paul thanks for the detailed response. This gives me some ideas to work with.
> Is there a specific Gigabyte motherboard that you would recommend using the
> AMD chip?

Have a browse, and you'll probably find something you like.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...nd&Order=PRICE

For the AMD chipsets, there is a chart at the bottom of this page. I
would have liked a chart that listed IGP clocks, pixel pipelines,
vertex shaders and the like, but this will have to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_700_chipset_series

Gaming on integrated graphics :-)

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=3430&p=4

Shopping procedure.

1) ID a candidate board.
2) Go to manufacturer web site
a) Download the user manual. Check for BIOS features. Can it overclock ?
b) Check the CPU compatibility chart. The processor you want to use,
may not fit. Some AMD boards can take up to 140W processors, while
there was a batch that could only handle 95W boards. So you have to
check, what kind of Vcore regulator the motherboard has, and whether
it will take a "high end" upgrade some day.
c) Check for drivers on the website. Are they up to date ? Is everything
there that you need ?
3) Check reviews on Newegg or on a private forum, looking for DOA boards,
or boards that tend to fry in a short time. There are a lot of bad
boards out there, caused by the price sensitive designs.

It was easier to pick a winner, maybe three or four years ago. You'd find
the odd board, which stood out from the crowd. Now, they're a blur, and
most of your time is spent "turning over rocks", looking for badly
designed BIOS, bad drivers and the like. It's like picking apples
from a bin, where all the apples are bruised. You want one with the
fewest bruises.

Good luck,
Paul