It is said "If you pick the right mobo, there is little this chipset can not do. You can run it fanless,"

But what about the CPU ventirad ??

I don't think a AMD 4850e can survive with passiv cooling ? or please give me clues

Hey DJ's and people with multiple projectors or 2-4 monitors, besides Gamers... This thing is CrossFire enabled!

You could easily connect upto 4 diplays! Say 1-2 monitors with 2-3 projectors, meaning for me as a DJ/VJ... I can shrink my setup with integrated VJ'ing to a rediculously small, quiet (good for multitrack recording), and stable platform!

Sadly, I have a very similar Gigabyte board, but AM2, not AM2+, and it's the Nvidia nForce chipset, which means the onboard video is bypassed (NOT SLI enabled) when a graphics card is installed. I jumped the gun too soon!

This AMD chipset / with onboard ATI graphics is CrossFIRE! Buy ONE video card and connect upto 4 displays!!!!

No one I know, unless you want to spend big $$$ and go Intel, can give 4 displays on a mATX form factor! Dual SLI boards with Intel would be the only (far more expensive, more power hungry option)... Ahh Intel, no true quadcore, just two dual cores wrapped in a single package.

Well the mobo looks good for spec but where can we buy the 4850e. The only AMD 45w CPU that is available is the BE-2350 at 1.9ghz. The 4850e is 2.5ghz so i know which want!!

So sad about the Vista-only stuff. Will there be a way for MB makers to produce something that supports *all* the goodies in XP (or, heck, Linux/BSD :-) ?

The motherboard presented here is the GA-MA78GM-S2H, in case anyone is actually trying to find one.

DrewDogg, I took a look into the chipset and board you were talking about and it is nothing special. No, and I mean no, intergrated GPU chipset has even come close to a 4-digit score in 3DMark06. Intel hasn't even broken 800 as far as I know. This is huge for people who want to play the lastest games (granted at low-mid settings) with just $160 upgrade to current system. This will be another market that scares the crap out of Nvidia, not Intel.

Does anyone know if you could you use the onboard as a gpgpu if you had another card in there? or is that only the latest versions?

Sir,

it's been long since anyone talked about that piece.. SB750... wow. We need more info on that ie release date, and only raid5 (nothing else?).

Thanks

Stirs the imagination. OK, now lets use cables on all the PCIe(serial bus) lanes and collapse this down into the bottom of a briefcase and that's my idea of a portable computer. Standard hardware, desktop speed, $200 bucks; have fun, will travel.

Moses knows.

On the PSU caveats you mentioned, what you said might have been true of much older or very cheap PSUs but modern, quality, PSUs tend to tip off in terms of efficiency anywhere from 60-80% load. Also the PC Power & Cooling unit you used most likely was an 80+ certified unit (meaning it's supposed to be 80% efficient no matter how you load it) with Active PFC so you'd see excellent efficiency anywhere from 20% load to 100% load.

Didn't Intel release an E0 stepping of Broadwater a full 3 quarters ago, that is not only DX10 complient for the gamers and Vista inthusiats, but runs on the cheaper, but just as effective DD2 (versus DDR3) and matches up with Conroe?

Machines based off this mobo have been in the $500 range for quite some time now.

In relation BD vs HDDVD, they use the same codec (VC1) in almost all cases, if it's stuttering on BD vs HDDVD it's probably a bitrate difference or possibly audio is being decoded at a higher rate.

So this board playing HDDVD is probably going to be able to play Blu too. 

Good to see the integrated graphics is moving forward.

Unfortunately, I don't believe this is so great.

I remember a motherboard I had in '99 which used a Riva TNT2 as the integrated gfx - which was decent enough to run ALL contemporary games.

Its a pity the IGP now gets stuck on the same package as the NB, rather than what used to be a discrete part stuck right on the mobo.

Obviously the modern method is more cost efficient, but at the sake of performance


It is my experience that HD-DVD requires less horse power than Blue-Ray to decode, on an nForce 6150 board with AMD processor and external graphics card I could easily play HD-DVDs but Blue-Ray would stuter, I moved on to a 780 and Core 2 and now have no problems with either format. But Blue-Ray should be used in your test for obvious reasons. 

So the big question is, "what will Intel to do next"? They could continue connecting quad core CPUs to chipsets that don't play the Sims 2. Or they could bundle a graphics card with each platform, which would benefit Nvidia and ATI.

Back when world scrambled for one ULTIMATE mainboard, AMD came up with 690 iatx w/asus, exactly year ago. It scored cool 300 on 3d'6, so 1,500 is VAST improvement. Also only 3 of 4 memory slots workied, as 4th memroy adddresses was used internally for game card memory locations, no more room for 32 bit nature.Also hdmi kind of rumble barfed.

To test this with Ultimate 64 on 3d Vantage will be more accurate & its supposed to be previewed? at cebit, would define more.So Hand it Over. TOP Score of 3,000 is about same as year ago, Yet 690 micro was slam bam solution of moment, yet good with media & same price range. also ddr2, yet only 800. Chuckles, can this do 8 gb ddr2?

Its one 16X card Main, yet thats Ultimates BEST Home User Domain, who'd buy? more. How about Those HOTTER cards too? Remember XP had no igp in early years, not till '3 was that invented(mainly due to failed vga ports), so its moving along nicely & can support some TOP Stuff for reasonable cost. Now was that an Electro Rant? TELL MIST.ER LEE: -=Code is broken=-THE DOG is Turning RED.
Signed:thomas von drashek

AT adds: Obviously smoking the same stuff as Moses.

Something affordable and (kind of) fast. I paid almost $300 for my mobo, and it's about time that manufacturers offer more affordable and speedy boards in one package.

Heard some manufacturers will implement onboard memory just for the graphics end of things. Who are they? How will it happen?