Any good 945G boards?

  • Thread starter Thread starter max
  • Start date Start date
M

max

Having come across an excellent deal on an Intel CPU, I'm thinking
about building a box based on a P4 640 (3.2GHz) chip, and would like
to get a good, but not too expensive, 945G (onboard graphics) board.

So far, I haven't been able to find many reviews of them.

Looks like Asus makes the P5LD2-VM in micro ATX, which isn't my
preferred form factor, but their website is seriously biting the big
one right now, and isn't much help.

Anybody have any experience with these or any other 945G boards? I'd
like to find one with 2 PATA channels and a serial port, which the
P5LD2-VM appears to have.

TIA!

max
 
Having come across an excellent deal on an Intel CPU, I'm thinking
about building a box based on a P4 640 (3.2GHz) chip, and would like
to get a good, but not too expensive, 945G (onboard graphics) board.

So far, I haven't been able to find many reviews of them.

Looks like Asus makes the P5LD2-VM in micro ATX, which isn't my
preferred form factor, but their website is seriously biting the big
one right now, and isn't much help.

Anybody have any experience with these or any other 945G boards? I'd
like to find one with 2 PATA channels and a serial port, which the
P5LD2-VM appears to have.

TIA!

max
Click to expand...

Of the two PATA interfaces, one cable connects to the Southbridge.
It should be the most compatible, in terms of allowing any IDE
device to be used trouble free. A separate ITE chip is used for
the second cable, meaning you get to discover any gotchas when you
connect optical drives on there etc.

Also, download the manual and read the BIOS section. Historically,
MicroATX boards have been intended for mass deployment in business
applications, and the BIOS interface tends to be simplified. The
only pleasant exception, might have been the P4P800-VM. You want
the ability to adjust Vcore, Vdimm, clock rates for CPU and
memory, the memory timing settings, and so on. Not because it
should be necessary (auto settings usually suffice), but if some
component is not 100%, adjustable settings are useful for
making the computer stable. (A quick scan of the manual, shows
it has the goods.)

http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/P5LD2-VM/e1996_p5ld2-vm.pdf

Integrated graphics may suffice for business applications, but
you will be truly disappointed with 3D graphics. Also, if you plan
on installing Longhorn (Vista) some day, I understand there will
be certain hardware requirements for graphics. The integrated
graphics core may not meet those requirements. Since the board
does have a PCI Express video card slot, you can fix that at a
later date.

Paul
 
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