RE: [MLUG] good mobo for simple system?

["Fallert, Adam Christian" <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

If you are not concerned about AGP vs. PCI-E, then you can certainly get
and AGP with DVI output for less than $30.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814121183


Otherwise, the cheapest PCI-E you can get is about $35.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814127204

Adam

-----Original Message-----
From: EMAIL:PROTECTED
[mailto:EMAIL:PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Phillip Kelchen
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 11:23 AM
To: MLUG Members
Subject: Re: [MLUG] good mobo for simple system?

On Wednesday 09 August 2006 10:08, Mike Miller wrote:
> Thanks to everyone for the tips.  I think Hardy and others are right
> and I can cut back a little on the monitor by keeping it VGA instead
of
> DVI.  I guess everyone is skeptical of Hanns, but he doesn't seem like
> such a bad guy.  ;-)
>
> Mike

I have also not heard of that brand, but I can certainly tell you about 
digital and analog LCDs. I have sitting in front of me a pair of Dell
LCDs- 
20.1" digital flat panel (DVI, RGB, SVHS, and RCA inputs) and my
brother's 
19" analog flat panel that is on loan. I have an inexpensive GeForce
6200TC 
with the standard one DVI, one RGB, and one SVHS output driving the
monitors 
in spanned DualHead mode.

The 20.1" unit simply looks like crud when hooked up using the RGB
input, and 
that's using a very good RGB cable that's about 9/16" in diameter. It is

rather fuzzy and not at all sharp- it looked as if I was running the
monitor 
at 1280x1024 and get that pixel fuzziness but I was actually running it
at 
its native UXGA spec. The SVHS and RCA inputs don't hit the native
1600x1200 
of the monitor, so they look fuzzy too. To rule out the fact that my
little 
$40 video card might be providing a less-than-optimal RGB signal, I also

hooked the monitor up to the RGB-out of my old laptop, which has a 
great-back-in-the-day Radeon M9000. This monitor is *very* crisp and
sharp 
when fed with the DVI- it is like night and day between the RGB and DVI 
interfaces for this unit.

The 19" analog flat panel has only an RGB input, and when fed the RGB
signal 
from the 6200TC, it looks okay. It looks sharper than the 20.1" unit
when fed 
from the RGB input but it is not as sharp or as clear as the 20.1"-er
fed 
over DVI. I'd say the 19" analog unit's clarity certainly passable,
though. 

So if you do decide to go analog RGB for a graphics solution, realize
that you 
want an analog-ONLY LCD and that it won't be as crisp as a DVI LCD fed
by a 
DVI cable. The analog LCDs are usually only trivially less expensive
than the 
DVI-capable ones, but you can use a motherboard's integrated graphics to
do 
RGB while I can think of only a couple of Intel boards that can do
integrated 
DVI with a $15-20 header. Otherwise to do DVI, you'd have to buy a
low-end 
GPU like my little $45 6200TC to provide a DVI signal.


And to Mark Rages, Mac Minis are okay, but they are more expensive than
an x86 
whitebox. $600 for a 1.5GHz single-core CPU, 2 256MB sticks of RAM, a
60GB 
HDD and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive is a bit steep. Here's an example of a
more 
powerful, less expensive unit (prices from Newegg.com)

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Socket AM2 (Windsor) @ 2.0 GHz: $151.00
Board: Biostar GeForce 6100 Micro-ATX Socket AM2: $62.99
RAM: OCZ Gold 2x512MB 5-5-5-12 DDR2-800: $99.99
Case: Antec Minuet micro-ATX slim-tower w/300W PSU: $76.99
HDD: WD Caviar SE16 160GB SATA-300 7200rpm HDD: $64.99
Optical: NEC ATAPI 16x DVD +/-R/RW: $30.99
...and because the Mac Mini has it: Gigabyte PCI 802.11g WLAN NIC:
$19.99.

The total is $506.94, almost $100 less than the Mac Mini. If they want 
Windows, an OEM copy is about $100, which would bring it to price parity
with 
the lowest Mac Mini. But this machine has twice the RAM, a much faster
HDD, a 
DVD burner, and also sits in a small, thin, attractive case. The Biostar

motherboard has one of the better integrated graphics units in it (much 
better than the Intel GMA series) that does RGB, and most importantly, a
far 
faster and dual-core CPU. Apple sells their units at a premium- "budget"

and "Apple" do not go together unless the word "large" precedes the 
word "budget." 


Phillip

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