IGP Motherboard recomendations

[Aenslead]

Hello Everyone.

Its been a while since I last posted here but I know there is no better place to get good recomendations.

I am currently building computers for an Advertising company, here in Mexico. They do not need Quadro or FireGL since they don't do any rendering whatsoever, so I'm thinking they basicly need a nice chipset with good image quality for their products, which basicly are Corel Draw X3, Adobe Creative Suite CS3 and FreeHand 11 and usually handle very large files (700MB+), so they need a quick, responsive system they can easily work in without moving objects and them jumping around instead of moving smoothly (as they should).

They must have Windows XP installed, for the sake of printer compatibility.-

Anyways, I was thinking in the current setup:
2GB DDR2-800 RAM
Core 2 Duo E8400
RAID 0
Antec Sonata III cases

No overclocking required. These are Design workstations.

So I was thinking:

NVIDIA C73 (nForce 630i + GeForce 7150) from XFX
Intel G33 (x3100 graphics)
Radeon Express X1200

I lean towards NVIDIA C73, but would like to know what you people think.

I appreciate any advice.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Radeon Xpress X1250 has the best IGP performance.

 

[Aenslead]

Thankyou. Any place I could take a look at that you know that has comparasions between IGPs for Intel?

 

[tcsenter]

For best responsiveness, you should avoid using integrated graphics. The design applications you listed and those in the same class are CPU and RAM intensive. Integrated graphics will not only share RAM but compete for memory bandwidth and CPU utilization as well. Although not necessarily a deal-breaker for performance, it can result in lags during various operations and those nice 'transition' effects when changing focus between application windows, like the screen being redrawn from top to bottom.

You may also want to think about delivering a system that is ready for dual monitor setups as well, given the workstation usage of your client. Finding an IGP board that 'just works' for dual display setups is a bit hit-or-miss.

You wouldn't need to spend a lot for a graphics card. Here are a few very affordable examples that would eliminate IGP system "drag" and reliably support dual displays (highest to lowest performance):

SAPPHIRE Radeon X1650PRO 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16

SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 2400PRO 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16

EVGA GeForce 8400GS 256MB 64-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16

Newegg doesn't ship to Mexico but you might be able to find equivalents in your region.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Hello Everyone.

Its been a while since I last posted here but I know there is no better place to get good recomendations.

I am currently building computers for an Advertising company, here in Mexico. They do not need Quadro or FireGL since they don't do any rendering whatsoever, so I'm thinking they basicly need a nice chipset with good image quality for their products, which basicly are Corel Draw X3, Adobe Creative Suite CS3 and FreeHand 11 and usually handle very large files (700MB+), so they need a quick, responsive system they can easily work in without moving objects and them jumping around instead of moving smoothly (as they should).

They must have Windows XP installed, for the sake of printer compatibility.-

Anyways, I was thinking in the current setup:
2GB DDR2-800 RAM
Core 2 Duo E8400
RAID 0
Antec Sonata III cases

No overclocking required. These are Design workstations.

So I was thinking:

NVIDIA C73 (nForce 630i + GeForce 7150) from XFX
Intel G33 (x3100 graphics)
Radeon Express X1200

I lean towards NVIDIA C73, but would like to know what you people think.

I appreciate any advice.

More ram - less proc ....

And consider OS/work drives seperate from your stripe. You are more likely to become I/O bound as opposed to cpu bound.

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Thankyou. Any place I could take a look at that you know that has comparasions between IGPs for Intel?

AMD 780g + SB700 chipsets are starting to appear. The AMD 690g chipsets had the Radeon Xpress X1250 IGP and most likely will be blown away by the 780g.

Intel will not have a 'comparable' until this Fall (?) with the G35 IGP ...

Here is AT's review of the 'current' Intel G33 IGPs

 

[Aenslead]

Great input, guys.

Very well, so less CPU, more RAM.

2x 80GB HDD in RAID 0 + 320GB HDD.

Video... how about an 8500GT?

NVIDIA 650i or Intel P35?

Thanks!

BTW: Will the 780G be available for socket 775 or only for AM2?

 

[Zap]

If no gaming or GPU rendering, then 8500GT would be overkill. Just go with the cheapest PCI-E card. For motherboard, I'd go with the P35 chipset.

Regarding your first post, I would choose the G33 chipset first and the C73 last. The C73 is only single channel RAM and the G33 is a "newer" chipset than the x1200.

 

[Aenslead]

Originally posted by: Zap
If no gaming or GPU rendering, then 8500GT would be overkill. Just go with the cheapest PCI-E card. For motherboard, I'd go with the P35 chipset.

Regarding your first post, I would choose the G33 chipset first and the C73 last. The C73 is only single channel RAM and the G33 is a "newer" chipset than the x1200.

Great.

So... about image quality. Its been said all over the place that ATI has always had better IQ, is this true and does this apply to these tasks?

Core 2 architecture isn't that dependant on memory bandwith: does the single channel from the C73 affect performance that much?

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Video... how about an 8500GT?

If you can get 8500GT in the same $30 ~ $40 price range as the other cards I offered as examples, then sure. But I wouldn't spend more to get it because the other cards will do the job fine.

However, I disagree that you should just go with the cheapest PCI-E card without consideration of features. You might as well avoid inferior GPUs or board configurations such as Radeon X1050, X1300, GeForce 6 Series, GeForce 7100/7200 models, TurboCache or HyperMemory configurations, or cards with 32-bit memory interface. These could at best only save you several dollars but most would not be significantly better than the best-in-class IGP you are considering.

You should go with the cheapest PCI-E card that offers:

- Not less than 64-bit memory interface
- Exclusive frame buffer (no TurboCache or HyperMemory)
- AVIVO or 2nd-Gen PureVideo enabled parts
- Dual Link DVI

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: tcsenter
However, I disagree that you should just go with the cheapest PCI-E card without consideration of features.
...
- Not less than 64-bit memory interface
- Exclusive frame buffer (no TurboCache or HyperMemory)
- AVIVO or 2nd-Gen PureVideo enabled parts
- Dual Link DVI

How is AVIVO or 128 bit video memory going to help in Corel Draw? I thought the point was to offload the video from using system RAM and bandwidth? TurboCache/HyperMemory doesn't come into play under 2D conditions, AFAIK.

Dual link DVI might be handy though, if they think they may go with 30" monitors in the future.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: Aenslead
Great input, guys.

Very well, so less CPU, more RAM.

2x 80GB HDD in RAID 0 + 320GB HDD.

Video... how about an 8500GT?

NVIDIA 650i or Intel P35?

Thanks!

BTW: Will the 780G be available for socket 775 or only for AM2?

The Radeon X1250 IGP was avialable with Intel CPUs in some notebooks but no joy on the desktop. I would guess the chances of the 780g are 'very slim' and 'none'.

I understand it's not an 'intel' option but first looks at the 780g's are popping up all over the place. Display HQV looks great . 'Hybrid' Crossfire combines IGP graphics with the PCIe2 x16 slot. The Gigabyte 780g page is up ...

I've almost convinced myself to buy one - lol

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Zap
How is AVIVO or 128 bit video memory going to help in Corel Draw? I thought the point was to offload the video from using system RAM and bandwidth? TurboCache/HyperMemory doesn't come into play under 2D conditions, AFAIK.

Strictly 2D GUI mode stuff would be kept in local frame buffer at all times, but that doesn't mean everything is strictly 2D except 3D games. With the advent of programmable shaders and especially unified shaders, a lot of things are utilizing elements of the same shader pipeline available to 3D applications, including plug-ins used by some photo editing, desktop publishing, and graphics design applications (as well as Flash, Java, et. al.).

Obviously, advanced video decoding is not outside the realm of desirable features to have for an advertising agency's design workstation (e.g. digital content creation). It also tends to assure a better overall feature set than older non-AVIVO or first-gen PV predecessors.

I didn't recommend boards with 128-bit memory interface. I recommended avoiding boards with 32-bit memory because it is too limiting even for many low-end cards.

Again, the overall point was that he might as well avoid inferior hardware because there is no significant savings in it. When the difference between inferior and superior hardware amounts to several dollars, what is there to disagree about?