What chipset for a budget Intel build these days?

[Gilby]

I'm doing an upgrade for a friend that can no longer stand horrid framerates in WoW. These are mostly due to using integrated graphics. Just adding a new card won't due as it would have to be PCI or PCIEx1, and there's nothing really good at a decent price for those.

So, she's getting a nice 3850. But that means a new motherboard. She's lucky to have a LCG777 chip (a P4 524) so we're going to stay with that for now, but she wants to be able to swap that out for a C2D or better down the road.

So what chipset for a budget build these days? Looking around, I see boards in the $40-$50 price range that should give her what she wants. No overclocking is needed, but stability is important. (I don't want to have to keep going over there to troubleshoot something wonky.) Intel 945P? G31?

 

[o1die]

I use an msi g31, and it works fine. No stability issues or error messages. Made for a compaq presario. I also setup a p45 board tonight, and it works great. It's made by asrock and should be available soon.

 

[Foxery]

P35 and is today's popular budget Core2 chipset. I think the G in G31 means it comes with onboard video, but as long as it comes with a PCIE x16 slot, you can ignore it and plug in the ATI card.

One other consideration comes to mind - if she doesn't have a seperate sound card, make sure to buy a board with built-in audio.

 

[tcsenter]

Originally posted by: Gilby
So what chipset for a budget build these days? Looking around, I see boards in the $40-$50 price range that should give her what she wants. No overclocking is needed, but stability is important. (I don't want to have to keep going over there to troubleshoot something wonky.) Intel 945P? G31?

945G/945P and G31/P31 are OK except being limited to 4GB MAX with no support for memory remapping, thus cannot take advantage of larger memory support under 64-bit OS. In fact, memory resources would be even more strained under 64-bit OS on these chipsets. So unless you have 64-bit applications that will uniquely take advantage of 64-bit processors, it would be pointless to use 64-bit OS on these chipsets - ever.

 

[Gilby]

Originally posted by: Foxery
P35 and is today's popular budget Core2 chipset. I think the G in G31 means it comes with onboard video, but as long as it comes with a PCIE x16 slot, you can ignore it and plug in the ATI card.

One other consideration comes to mind - if she doesn't have a seperate sound card, make sure to buy a board with built-in audio.

Can you still find boards without built-in audio? Outside of server applications, anyway? And the G31s seem to be cheaper than the P31s (and P35s) and price does matter.

 

[Foxery]

I guess onboard audio has become standard everywhere by now - even moreso for a product aimed at saving money. I took a quick glance at Newegg's G31/G35 motherboard selection, and they all have audio and a PCIe x16 slot for graphics. ($60-90 range)

 

[Gilby]

Originally posted by: Foxery
I guess onboard audio has become standard everywhere by now - even moreso for a product aimed at saving money. I took a quick glance at Newegg's G31/G35 motherboard selection, and they all have audio and a PCIe x16 slot for graphics. ($60-90 range)

Mostly standard quite awhile ago. Onboard Video has become basically standard for just about any mATX budget board as well. I ordered an Asus P5KPL-CM for her. Comments suggest it's quite well built with nice heat sinks and caps. I wanted to avoid the real budget manufacturers.