smokievol

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Jul 17, 2008
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I am planning on building a new rig. This will be my third build.
I have always used AMD.
I was looking at the GIGABYTE GA-MA78G-DS3H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI ATX AMD
for 90.00, which from my research is the best MB with on board graphics.
But having the a NX8600GTS Card MSI card made me change my mind.

Since I have a NX8600GTS Card I am going with,
BIOSTAR TForce TF8200 A2+ AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 8200 HDMI ATX
$ 90.00
Plus
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
$ 86.50

So my first question is, stay with the NVIDIA 8200, or go with the 780G and buy a new card?

Second question is, whats the difference between DDR2 800 and DDR 1066.
Seems like there are loading issues with the 1066.

The operating system will be Vista 64.

Still looking at the CPU, weather to go with a Quad, or a 3 Core to save some bucks.
AMD Phenom 8450 Toliman 2.1GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache 2MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 95W Triple-Core Processor
$125.00
or a quad for another 45.00


I need to find a Great TV card.

Any suggestions?

I already have the hard drives, case, DVD player and all the other stuff. Will probably purchase a new CPU fan.
In the future will buy a Blue ray when the prices come down.

 

wacky7

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Jul 4, 2008
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wel I got a 8200 ECS motherboard so far it running ok with 1066 ballistix tracer 4 GB on vista 64 ulttimate AMD 9850 no problems.Vista even loaded my RAID 0 without installing driver when loading vista.but the update bios from ecs 8200 website is horable just don't update the Bios . that gave me problems. had to RMA. but that a good motherboard for your video card hope they got a good BIOS Update compare to ECS. ECS useing AMI BIOS i don't know what Biostar uses.
but it up to you if your still into nivida I have a ECS NV9800GTX so I went with the nivdia 8200 motherboard it ran all my games even newer games and all my stuff just fine alittle faster than my old 939 nvidia nf4 chipset. play all the movies even blue ray. if your planing on buying a better video card somday I don't know that up to u. can go with AMD/ATi or stick with nVidia chipset but i'm sure you can run a SLI with that video card that you have with no problems but no hybrid technologies going to work with it. I don't know about mixing a AMD/ATI hybrid technologies video card with that motherboard nvidia 8200 or nVidia hybrid technologies video card on a AMD/ATI chipset motherboard but they still going to work but not as good for a video card to perform the lack of the video card. but with a 800 DDR2 with a AMD quad core gave me some problems i don't know if it my freind memory is buggie with the AMD 9500 and 9850 it was corsair 2x2 and 1x1 = 6GB 4-4-4-12 800DDR2 2.1 v memory but it run fine in 1066 5-5-5-15 2.2v ballistix tracer so I don't know seam like all the corsair haveing probelms with the new AMD. frist time building a new AMDs motherboard the all motherbaord 780G seam to run fine too but had to load RAID driver for RAID O for master hard drive for vista on a ll the AMD/ATi chipset. the different between the 800 DDR2 and 1066DDR2 is the bandwidth 800 DDR2 is 400 mhz speed for FSB to your CPU. the 1066 is 533 mhz FSB to your CPU. the faster the better. but if you put them in Dual Channel DDR2 -128bit mode on the motherboard then it double the speed 400 x 2 = 800 and 533 x 2 =1066 it even more faster . so now DDR3 is out from Intel so i hope AMD will come out with a new chipet that will support the AMD2+ for DDR3
For a TV tunner card Hauppauge winTV HD tuner card is the way to go!
but it better to buy a newer video card put onto the newer any new motherboard the PCI 2.0 is something that I look for extra speed without any hicups all onboard video sucks but adding a video card later is a must.lol
but good luck on your rig. but keep researching for better memory 1066 is t he way to go
 

elliott78212

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Feb 28, 2009
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I have the ECS Geforce 8200 motherboard paired with 8500GT it performs very well. I used the new AMD KUMA DUAL CORE 2.7GHZ BE. I choose not to overclock it until I test what it's capable of this particular processor has the L3 cache of a Phenom and I highly reccomend it as you can use 1066mhz ram on dual core big plus. My board is running in Hybrid SLI shows up in Vista Experience as 8600, I suppose when you combine the two the Hybrid SLI and how best to configure my system. Currently I have it connected to my discrete card with SLI enabled. I updated my Bios and had no issues I did two updates so far which added support for the new Phenom II processors. I am very happy the overal picture is sharper, crisper, frame rates improved a bit from 29 to 35 thats just an average each game I play is affected differently but all show better performance. Maybe someone can advise me on how I should have it connected for best performance should it be connected to the IGP or the discrete card my monitor has hdmi and d-sub. I am running Wintec Ampo Dual channel 800mhz ram on Vista Ultimate 64bit I dunno if it should be ganged or unganged I read about this setting and still can't seem to figure out what would be best. I also purchased the ECS 780GM-A with AMD 2300 X2 BE my wife loves it Running Vista Premium and I have the Foxconn A7GMS both of these use the AMD 780 chipset both paired with ASUS 3450 in HYBRID CROSSFIRE the Foxconn is matx and serving as HTPC in my living room streaming HULU, NETFLIX, playing Divx/Xvid files and DVD I added an SPDIF bracket have sound connected to my Sony Surround System it's awesome. I am really pleased with all three boards and reccomend the Nvidia Geforce 8200 chipset if you wanna play games as it performs the best in that category the AMD/ATI 780G is just a very good pc for the average to mild gamer the onboard graphics for both of these perform very very well but as always adding a compatible video card that works with they new hybrid technologies is best for getting the biggest bang for the buck on your purchase.
I have tested all these games so far on all systems, Dungeon Siege II, FarCry, BattleField 2, Titan Quest, tests were performed using both IGP and Hybrid modes you will be very surprised how well the IGP performs remarkable after years of hating IGP.
 

jlvitt

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Feb 19, 2009
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I just bought the Asus M3A78-Em for my new build
it has the 780G Chipset

From what I have read the ATI 3200 igp is a bit better than the nvidia 8200 onboard but the performance increase is marginal.

keep in mind ati and amd are in cohorts with each other

i read in another forum where ati/amd hybrid crossfire is a performance gain of around 75% whereas amd/nvidia is around 60-65%

once again, very marginal but significant nonetheless.

 
Actually u have a tri core but the wrong architecture IMO hehe. Have a look at how peeps got to unlocked the 4th core for a Phenom 2 tri core here:
http://forums.vr-zone.com/news-around-the-web/396089-phenom-ii-x3-unlockable-x4-wtf-5.html
Suggested configuration:
TA790MATXx3.jpg

I'd say run on integrated graphics as u not gaming and that HDMI will hook up easily to any LCD TV. Save on power, heat and noise generation :p
 

elliott78212

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Feb 28, 2009
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Congratulations on your recent builds. I have to question the gaming assesment the geforce when paired with the right video card is much better in gaming. BigBruin.com has a full review of both chipsets the problem with the ATI 780g is that it can only be hybrid crossfired with the 3450 or 3470 both are 64bit cards with a max of 256-512mb while the 8400gs & 8500gt is 64bot-128bit and comes in 256-1gb memory configs. The best part about these motherboards as it was in my case is if you already have one of the above mentioned video cards you can increase its overall performance with a new board both play HD video & BluRay just fine audio on the ATI is very very good while I haven't tested the audio on the 8200. Asus makes an excellent and cheap 3450 video card with HDMI/VGA/DVI & the Geforce cards you typically find DVI/VGA/S-Video as the configuration. Each has its upside and downside.
I have read some good things about the Tri-Cores and on newegg.com they have reduced the prices on the first gen Tri-Cores as the new ones have come out btw new energy efficient Dual Cores have been hitting the market at 45watts. I have my pc's set up to go into the deep sleep offered by Vista which saves me even more on energy usage while not having to boot up simply one light click on the power button and my screen comes up, great feature, I read somewhere that this mode uses about 1watt of power to the ram, and I can tell you all my fans are not running until I hit the power button. Considering I am a nut for air cooling my case and have made every effort to find low noise fans this alone is a great bonus. I used to be in my bedroom and could hear my fans we used to joke the office was gonna take off for outer space anytime, now it's this pleasant almost unnerving quiet. ATI's latest video card chipsets are amazing I installed a 4850 for a customer recently and the image resolution and crispness was off the charts I didn't test it with any games but can only imagine. The price was reasonable but definetly not for the budget minded. I also had an install with the 3650 but it's drivers are very buggy the driver would just stop and this was on a fresh install I returned it because after updating to the latest drivers it only got worse, very puzzling.
The 780g & 8200 are aimed at the budget minded begginer to mid-range gamer and Multimedia user, for this category of shopper I think we can agree that these chipsets will do the job admirably and so far most of the mobo's with them offer extras, tweaks and features typically only available on more expensive boards from ASUS, MSI, GIGABYTE, while FOXCONN, ECS, & BIOSTAR offer more affordable alternatives with near to matching performance.