ASROCK motherboards, are they any good

[Michael Culley]

Not necessarily... only if the bus was so saturated that it delayed the
other data. Typically, the bus is not so saturated. If you had a 4 lane
highway, having 2 cars already on it will not necessarily slow down a 3rd
car.

Certain operations would still saturate the memory and it is at those times you need the speed.

True, it is not a large cost difference, but then for someone considering
such a low-to-mid range system, it may easily be a signficant percentage
of total cost. Some people have no need for more PCI slots if a board
already has sound, network adapter, video.

These days it seems pretty rare that someone wants the basic system. They all say that to start with but 12 months later they want
this and that. The latest big fad is wireless network cards but I can guarentee they didn't know they wanted that 12 months ago.
Seems to me the extra cost of a vga card is worth all the hassle it saves later.

It is not necessarily true that a board with integrated video has
drawbacks of too few USB ports (almost all have 4-6 including the
front-port pin header, how many do you really need?).

You are correct, who would need 6 but still most full boards now have 8. USB was just an example anyway, generally they cut out
other features also.

It can't be assumed a board with integrated video is better quality. If
you buy a low-end brand it could be, but so would that brand's offerings
without the integrated video.

But it seems that there is a much larger proportion of lower quality boards with integrated vga.

More ram? Who cares? If the integrated video uses 64MB, which is worth
about $9 worth of memory. You're saving $40 for a video card so if memory
is the issue then you can put that $40 towards 256MB more. In many
instances, a low-end box would benefit more from the 256MB than a seperate
video card, UNLESS the user wants good 3D gaming.

But that $9 is almost 25% of the $40 "saving". If you take that off you are saving just $31. For the huge list of potential problems
it is false economy.

Integrated video also allows a much smaller system case. yesteryear's
pizza box cases look large compared to some of today's boxes. It might
not be suitable as primary system for a power user, but certainly a good
alternative for a file server or internet kiosk, office machine, etc.

For ITX I partly agree. I have one myself, a via 1ghz machine with onboard everything. In that case I was well aware I was
sacrificing performance and upgradability for size. Still, you can get ITX boards with an AGP slot.

I don't fully disagree with you but I think most people who buy onboard video do so because they haven't been fully educated about
the pitfalls. I've never had a customer chose to have onboard video after I've explained the differences. The customer who onboard
video suits would be fairly rare, it seems that everyone is the exception in some way.

The other thing I forgot to mention is that the second hand market is generally full of more savy users who will shy away from
onboard video, so the $31 saving will most likely be lost when selling it.

spend a bit more, since just about any system could be faster for a few
dollars more, then a few dollars more, then a few dollars more. It's all
a matter of what the budget is and how that budget best applies to the
user's needs, and for some that means integrated video.

There is a price point on everything, you probably don't get value for money out of buying a 3.2Ghz cpu over a 2.8 or 1 gig of ram
over 512. But you get very good value for money avoiding onboard video.

 

[Michael Culley]

This nicely sums up my attitude to "the it's only of few more pounds" to get
this, that is slightly better but which you have no need for. If you do this
with the processor, graphics card, sound card, mouse, keyboard, monitor and
onwards you suddenly end up spending and extra £100 - £200 for features
which you just don't want or indeed need.

IMHO most systems sold are completelty over the top for what they are
actually used for. Yes I know that many PC users play cutting edge games (I
love Far Cry myslef) but would your average user notice the difference
between say an 1.5GHz and 2.5GHz based system? except in terms of money.

Depends on what the upgrade is tho. Going for a 250gig hdd may not be worth it but downgrading from an 80 gig to a 20 gig to save $9
would be a false economy even if the user thinks they will never fill it (a hdd is like a cupboard, it looks big when it's empty
That's the way I look at it with onboard video, a big downgrade for little saving.