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Integrated 3D Graphics Motherboard Round-Up
Keefe writes "In the recent past, integrated video was seldom a viable solution for hardcore computer gamers. Enthusiasts shunned from motherboards with integrated video, and opted to buy ones without it, in additional to a much faster ATi or Nvidia-powered graphics accelerator. Today, the picture is beginning to change. The last few integrated motherboards sported decent graphics chipsets, like the Nvidia NForce (GeForce2 MX), ATI IGP320 (Radeon VE), or Intel 845G. Techware Labs has taken a look at the current integrated 3D video chipsets on the market and concluded how they perform in the latest 3D software."
Don't assume the only market for a 3d-capable video is gamers, then. Don't assume that all 'joe blows' do what you think either. Hell, or that all games require good 3d performance.
I have a PC by the side of my TV based around a Duron and an nForce board to get me a very quiet system (no extra VGA fan, no southbridge fan) to run through my TV. The 3d is used for some gaming (yes, mainly Q3A and similar), but also for some set-top box multimedia applications I'm writing, which use the 3d too.
If what you say is true, all 'normal consumers' would still be buying a Tseng Labs ET4000 for their Pentium 200 MMX, because they don't need anything more. Obviously that isn't the case.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
yea but who cares for a surf/Word-for-your-dad-type-machine, where an integrated geforce 2 is still a substantial increase from what he currently has and is more than enough to run Diablo
just because it doesn't fit your needs doesn't mean it doesn't meet someone elses, besides many integrated boards come with the ability to disable the on board video as well as add a card if you want,a nd coupled with integrated 10/100 and decent sound they can save you tons of money w/o sacrificing much flexibility if all you are is an end user do you really need to go beyond changing out harddrives and adding some ram later maybe anyway? probably not, my $.02
The newer generation of boards also have an AGP Port. Many older integrated boards did not, and the ones that did were either onboard video OR AGP. The newer boards allow BOTH.
So you can run two monitors, one with high speed for games, the other for console stuff (and it does not slam main memory hard at all) without burning any precious PCI slots.
This is somewhat mitigated by 2 and 3 way video out AGP boards, but still...
I don't think it is hard-core gamers that they are aiming at with these. However, for business use, or general family/AOL use, with the possibility of some games either after hours or when cousin Jimmy comes up for the holidays and brings his laptop.
Integrated video is not always bad, and is in some cases quite good. What makes it bad is using shared system memory, and not being able to be disabled. What makes it really good is when it can be over riden in the bios to use a add-in PCI card. For example, my Dell Optiplex at work a few years ago (p2-350,128mb ram, 8mb ATI video) was quite a "average" machine for gaming - it ran Quake2 in GL mode and could maintain a decent 35fps average. Just fine for those "lunch time LAN parties" and after work frag sessions, but not what I'd plan on using to build that monster box that makes everyone at the LAN party ph34r your hardware advantage (remember the days of dual Voodoo2 cards?)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Like another poster pointed out, integrated motherboards aren't targeted at serious gamers. They're targeted at average people.
Some of the early-generation ones didn't come with an extra AGP slot or a way of disabling the on-board options, but that seems to have been fixed now.
True, you might not find 5.1 sound or AGP8x/GeForce4 4400 performance, but if you consider who these motherboards are targeted at, it's good enough.
Just a comparison in Singapore:
Motherboard + video card + sound card >= 400
Integrated motherboard >= 185
Does anyone know of motherboards that have an DVI output for their integrated graphics? As a fan of low-noise low-cost computers I am interested in motherboards with integrated graphics, but I need a DVI connector.
You can play Everquest, Ultima Online (3D client,) America's Army, Warcraft 3, all Sims versions, and every half-life mod known to man with a GeForce2 MX and an Athlon 1 ghz quite nicely. It may not be as pretty as your more powerful cards, but your gaming experience with older gear is still quite good. You're not really missing out on the most popular gaming venues with an old system.
Also, it's often not a matter of not being able to afford the card, but a matter of interest. If the low-end integrated video can play the more popular titles, it's possible that the player might develop an interest in gaming that he didn't have when he bought the machine (reason no. 1 to ALWAYS make sure you have proper expansion slots!)
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
You're putting words into my mouth.
I take it you haven't really looked at the specs for this integrated chipset.
I have. Integrated Geforce2 mx core. Wow! Geforce 2 mx! That was the BUDGET (read, slow) version of the geforce 2, released 1 or 2 years ago. Gosh, that must be fast.
Radeon VE! Wow! VE = Value edition, in case you didn't know. The VE was the bastard child of the radeon family. It was known for it's crippled core and slow performance.
Wow, 845G! That thing's using technology that Nvidia and ATI have had in their cards for, going on 2 years now? And, what's that? It's also unstable?
So yes, to answer your question, I have looked at their specs. They are pathetic and slow. They are more than an average person needs, and far far less than an average gamer needs.
These integrated chipsets have a lot of nice features, including digital 5.1 sound. It's essentially like having a GeForce4 MX (a card I have in my machine at home) with a good quality sound-card - only, two fewer cards to buy.
Not everyone likes having a mess of cards in their PC. Not everyone needs bleeding edge. Lots of people are perfectly happy not having the latest-greatest.
That's who this integrated chipset is for.
Thanks for missing my point. I'm not arguing against integrated chipsets. I'm arguing against the integrated video cards in them.
And you know the nail in the coffin for the integrated solutions? They leech bandwidth from the CPU. Your gf4 mx at home is fine in performance because it has a 128 bit bus running at 400mhz effective to it's gpu. An integrated video solution has to run off the bandwidth supplied to the cpu. If it's the ATI chipset, it's cannibializing part of the piss-poor 64-bit 333mhz bus going to the cpu. If it's the Nvidia part, it's for a while 64-bit 333mhz bus to play with too. Big whoop. That's LESS THAN HALF of what the card has as a standalone soltuion. And keep in mind even on the standalone cards, these things are bandwidth limited, not fill-rate.
So, tell you what. I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if you can come up with facts and information to prove me wrong. Just don't fight back with more conjecture and subjective arguments that don't mean anything in the real world.
a board that will let you use integrated graphics and the agp slot at the same time. It would be great for a dual monitor setup, reducing both the number of cards in your pc and probably cost as well.
Will it run the top of the line games at an acceptable level in 2 years?
Top of the line in 3D graphic detail, or top of the line in fun? I choose the latter, which is why I play games on my GBA and my GBA emulator. You don't need 3D accelerated video for that, just a fast (866 MHz PIII) processor and some bandwidth from the processor to the video card (TNT2). Take it up a bit (recent Athlon and GeForce 2) and you can emulate many N64 games.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I can speak from personal experience on this one here. This mobo isn't for your hardcore gamer, its for your average computer user who still wants to play video games at a reasonable price.
You're right. The hardcore gamer these days doesn't mess with PC video cards, but owns a PS2, Xbox, and/or Game Cube. If you don't, then you're missing out on lots and lots of really great games. Compare the number of incredible console games released in the last two years with the number of PC games that actually make good use out of high-end video card features like vertex and pixel shaders. It's almost as if the PC 3D card market exists entirely to support first person shooters.
Before modding me down, realize I'm a game developer. I love the hardware in cards like the GeForce 4. But I see those cards are being great for development platforms, not for commercial software. Heck, half of the machines that Dell sells ship with the Intel integrated 3D chipset, and we're talking 2+ GHz machines. The 3D game market on the PC, to a great, great extent, has become an marginally profitable niche.
The Geforce2 mx and Geforce4 mx are nearly identical. There was a bit of concern at the time of the Geforce4 mx release as to why it was given the number 4. There was never a geforce3 mx, and the geforce 3 performed far stronger than the Geforce4 mx. A geforce 4mx card does have a pretty good edge though, the memory controller is way faster than the nforce's, since the nforce uses shared memory. It also runs at a higher core clock frequency. It's not exactly orders of magnitude better though.
The bulk of card sales is in the low end market which integrated video can compete with nicely. Integrated video platforms make quite a bit of economic sense if they come with an AGP slot for a future upgrade. The nforce especially looks promising, all your drivers can be from 1 source, and from a company that has an excellent track record with drivers (except on linux/bsd, where the record isn't near as impressive). But if I were to build my parents a computer, it would be nforce/nforce2 based: Decent video, excellent sound and networking, only 2 driver packages, moderate price, and excellent upgrade path.
Integrated video speed not as bad a situation as a lot of people imagine it to be; integration keeps getting better also.
I know that people tend to really hate it when I post facts instead of blathering out mindless opinions.. however I'm going to go with the facts anyway.
Here's a link to some real and true benchmarks of the nForce 220 and 420 with their integrated graphics as compared to a GeForce2MX in Unreal Tournament and Max Payne.
For UT, the nForce 420 is 9.5% slower than the GeForce2 MX (at 1024x768), and for Max Payne the nForce is just under 15% slower. That's a far cry from "1/3rd the frame rate".
Ohh, and the original nForce was available without integrated graphics as well (the nForce 415 chipset).
Long story short, the nForce can and does play games just fine. It's not getting 200+ f/s at 1600x1200, but as long as you can get by with only 30-60f/s at 800x600, the nForce is up to the task. The nForce 2 should be about twice as fast since it has somewhat higher memory bandwidth and some new stuff which reduces it's dependance on memory bandwidth.