help with a budget card

[derf]

Hello, I'm getting ready to upgrade my daughters computer. She uses it at college. She is not a gamer.
First, I need to decide on a Motherboard. I'm looking at 3 choices. 2 are MSI, and 1 is ECS brand. 2 are about $48, without onboard video. The other is about $62, and has onboard. I have 512meg of 133 speed ram to use on it. The 3 boards also will take DDR ram. I am going this way, so I can upgrade this in the future, if needed. She has a duran 700 cpu now. I plan on getting a AMD 2400XP cpu. My first question is will the board with onboard video be good enough?
My second question is about a video card, if I decide to get one. If needed, I'm looking to spend 30 to $40. What is more important? 32 or 64 meg of ram, or the chipset?
Please keep in mind my tight budget when responding.
Thank you. Derf

 

[Crashman]

You'll find that the nForce 2 chipset will provide all the eideo performance the typical user needs, while others sometimes won't. I'd spend the extra $30 to $40 getting a good nForce2 board such as the MSI K7N2Delta-L, and skip the video card.

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[TheGreatGrapeApe]

You are going to have ALOT of trouble there. DURAN-DURAN don't make good CPUs J-ust K-iding!

You say she's not a gamer so then don't worry about it go with the onboard solution. But if she does any gaming then;

There is very little choice for $30-40. You MIGHT be lucky and find the equivalent of the R9100-64mb I've seen on sale in Canada for $50CDN (~35US). Considering it's only 14 dollars for onboard it's a very tempting value, and likely the best choice.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/guides/priceguide.html" target="_new">Anand's price list</A> shows the R9000-64mb for $47, and the GF4MXs (GF4MX's are better than the GF2MXs [or so I've been lead to believe {I don't usually research this end of the market}]) are selling for $33+ on <A HREF="http://www.newegg.com/" target="_new">NEWEGG.COM</A>, and while it makes little difference at these level of cards 64mb is a nice bonus, but not worth even $5 more for this class of card and likely worth nothing for someone who isn't gaming. The only way it would come into play is if she uses dual monitors.

The chipset is the most important thing. An R9000,9100 or even an R9200 would be better, but also may cost more.

Integrated may be the way to go for now, although the add-in card will be a bit faster, it's not like it'll be killer fast. Maybe the $15+ difference in price would be better spent eslewhere. And the main thing is what resolutions does she like to use when viewing 2D? If it's 1024x768 it should be ok with even an old onboard chip.

Well that's my 2 frames worth. Hope it's of some help.

EDIT: and since it took me a little longer to write than Crash, I'll just add, I second his recommendation of an Nforce2 board, it also gives you better future upgrade options, but make sure it supports that PC133 memory you have (or grab a stick of cheap DDR).

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <A HREF="http://www.redgreen.com" target="_new"><font color=green>RED</font color=green> <font color=red>GREEN</font color=red></A> GA to SK <P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by TheGreatGrapeApe on 09/19/03 10:05 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[derf]

Thanks for the fast replys. I built my sons system with a nforce2 m-board. Are there any boards available that support both 133 ram, and DDR ram? I want to use the 512 meg of 133 ram for now, to keep cost down.
Also, I am getting the AMD 2400xp cpu. I am NOT using the duran700.

 

[RRAMJET]

Yea their are boards that support DDR and SDRAM, though i'm not sure if they are still in production. I think you would be looking second hand their. Off the top of my head i can't think of the board, i think it was an Asus, i will do a check though. As someone stated the only reason your daughter would want a video card is for dual monitor display or playing games.

If he doesn't die, he'll get help!!!

 

[lord_tyranus2]

They can only support 1 type of RAM at a time though. Keep that in mind. Is the son a gamer?

 

[Spitfire_x86]

MSI KT2 Combo supports both SDRAM and DDR RAM

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