ITX board recommendations?

.:SAmSuNG:.

.:SAmSuNG:.

.:SAmSuNG:.

Soldato
Joined
12 Feb 2009
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London
Looking to upgrade my DDR2 Q9450 Zotac GF 9300-I-E Nvidia system.

I have a few questions:

  • Will the video performace be better than my current rig if using a i3?
  • Will the power usage me around the same or less?
  • What 1155 boards are the ones to go for?

Im not really worried about OCing as this is running a 150w psu and i wanna keep noise and heat low. I currently run my Q9450 at stock with a slight undervolt.

Use for light gaming and every day use.

Going to be used with
120GB Sata3 SSD
2x4GB DDR3
150wXT pico psu
Lian-li Q07

Thanks
 
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I'm going to go down the same route. I've been researching the board for the last hour or so.

Looks perfect for our needs. I also didn't realise there was an HD3000 i3 for an extra few quid. Perfect!

How does the HD3000 do with bluray playback? A walk in the park I presume?
 
Well i hope its easy. After looking around at the different i3's im going to get the 2125 which looks like the highest clock speed and has HD 3000. As theres no overclocking i think the little extra speed will be worth it.
 
.:SAmSuNG:. said:
Well i hope its easy. After looking around at the different i3's im going to get the 2125 which looks like the highest clock speed and has HD 3000. As theres no overclocking i think the little extra speed will be worth it.
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Save your money and get an HD2120. I have a Core i3 2100 and a Gigabyte H67N-USB3-B3. The video playback performance of the HD2000 and HD3000 is the same AFAIK.

The HD3000 is not that great. If you want to have a decent IGP the A8-3800 is the only low wattage CPU worth considering. The IGP is around HD5550 to HD5570 level and it does not have the 23.976FPS problem which the HD2000 and HD3000 have. It has the UVD3 decode block of the HD6000 series media cards too. The IGP is around 2 to 2.5 times faster than the HD3000:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/21730/8

http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-a83800-llano-processor-review/11

The first review uses 1333MHZ DDR3 RAM. With 1600MHZ DDR3 RAM the A8-3800 should give slightly better framerates.

One of the OcUK forum members runs the 100W A8-3800 off a 150W picoPSU IIRC so the A8-3800 will be fine.
 
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From what iv read HD3000 is twice as fast as HD2000. My current rig plays back 1080p fine and my nas streams all my movies to my tv anyway so the main reason for upgrading is gaming performance over my current nvidia onboard graphics.

And thanks for the info but im a intel kinda guy and iv already found and bought a well priced mobo.
 
.:SAmSuNG:. said:
From what iv read HD3000 is twice as fast as HD2000. My current rig plays back 1080p fine and my nas streams all my movies to my tv anyway so the main reason for upgrading is gaming performance over my current nvidia onboard graphics.

And thanks for the info but im a intel kinda guy and iv already found and bought a well priced mobo.
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I'm in the same boat to be honest. If it streams 1080P flawlessly. I don't care how much better it is. I wont be doing anything graphically intensive on it at all except the bluray rips.

What's these problems with the HD3000?
 
The HD3000 chip in my i5-2500k doesn't maintain 23.9fps in decent movies, so you may end up getting a decrete graphics card.

It will play old dvd movies which have been upscaled onto blue ray disks. They tend to be around 20GB in size (just the movile file). But the full blown HD content, around 40GB, will stutter. Avatar stutters badly, and 3D content is worse.

Your current system will play things fine because it has a nVidia 9300 graphics chip, with all nVidias PureVideo goodness. Intel are still playing catch up in the graphics game.

Have a look @ nVidias 520 series or a AMD HD6450 when you need to.
 
.:SAmSuNG:. said:
From what iv read HD3000 is twice as fast as HD2000. My current rig plays back 1080p fine and my nas streams all my movies to my tv anyway so the main reason for upgrading is gaming performance over my current nvidia onboard graphics.

And thanks for the info but im a intel kinda guy and iv already found and bought a well priced mobo.
Click to expand...

HD3000 gaming performance?? Eh?? :confused:

No,the HD3000 is NOT twice as fast as HD2000(which I have in my Core i3 2100). Did you even look at framerates in those two reviews??

In the best case scenario it is barely 50% faster than an HD2000. It is still atrocious. Even a £25 to £30 HD6450 or its Nvidia equivalent will probably obliterate it. It is barely better than an HD5450 and even then losses at times. You do realise that the IGP in the £50 to £60 Llano A4 series is faster than an HD3000? Even that is slower than an HD6450. On top of this an A8-3800 IGP is still 2 to 2.5 times faster than an HD3000.

Save yourself some money and put it towards a low profile graphics card. With a 150W PicoPSU there are plenty of cards which would run fine and consume very little power at load.

Something like a 35W Core i3 2100T and a low profile HD5550,HD5570,HD6570 or HD6670 or the Nvidia equivalent should be doable IMHO.

Also,Ivy Bridge will be released next year too. These are meant to have improved power consumption over the current CPUs. A few of the models have the HD4000 IGP which is meant to be 60% faster than the HD3000 according to Intel.
 
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So i should expect a downgrade in performance from my current 9300 onboard video?

Really wish i handnt already ordered a intel board if this is the case.
 
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It really depends what games you are playing and what res but the HD3000 will be better than a 9300 but it still wont be great unless you stick to 1280x800 or 720p. As has been said it does have an issue with 23.whatever video.

If you want to game properly get a real card OR get the Zotac Z68ITX-B-E Supreme.

Bottom line the HD3000 IS better than your 9300 but will never be as good as a discrete card. HD3000 is about on a par with HD5450.
 
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Well iv been playing the new tribes ascend at 800/600 at 20fps. My screen does 1920/1200 so it looks like crap.

If im going to end up reselling this gigabyte board i have the option to go with either the Llano or that zotac.

I really need someone to just say one is better.

i3 with the Z68 with the nvidia GT 430

Or

A8-380 with the asus board available.


Im just worried the Z68 board might be noisy with the extra fan.
 
The HD6550D on the Llano chip is pretty much the same or slightly worse than the GT 430 on the Zotac board.
http://pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-3850-Llano-Desktop-Processor-Review-Can-AMD-compete-Sandy-Bridge/Radeon-H

The i3 is a stronger processor than the A8 and the fan will not be noisy. Should be quieter than your CPU fan.

If you want to game properly get a 6670 it doesn't require any extra power and Asus do a good passive version. Plonk that on the gigabyte with the i3 and you have a better solution than either the A8 or Zotac.
 
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Ok thats great. I run a xonar D2X in the PCI-E slot so theres no room for a video card.

As the price of the board has doubled from what i original wanted what CPU should i be looking at?

Im guessing the i3-2120 would be fine if going with the GT 430 board?
 
.:SAmSuNG:. said:
Ok thats great. I run a xonar D2X in the PCI-E slot so theres no room for a video card.

As the price of the board has doubled from what i original wanted what CPU should i be looking at?

Im guessing the i3-2120 would be fine if going with the GT 430 board?
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I would go with either the 2100 which is the cheapest or the 2100T which is almost half the power consumption for less than £10 more. You won't notice the extra 200MHz that the 2120 gives really. I would go with the 2100 personally to keep costs down and the 2100 is a really solid CPU.
 
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