I have a rather specialized question about computer motherboards and was wondering if anyone here knows of a good forum to be asking such questions?
How specialized? There is a lot of knowledge here.
If you can’t get an answer here, this is a good site:
(I’m an engineer who has designed motherboards, so I may be able to help.)
I’m looking for a mini-ATX motherboard for the Intel i5 quad-core processor. The quad-cores don’t have on-board video so I am looking for a motherboard that supplies VGA output without the need for an external video card.
Do you mean micro-ATX? Or mini-ITX? Mini-ATX is pretty rare.
What sort of case do you want to fit this board into?
In general, if you can find a suitable motherboard with an NVIDIA or ATI chipset, you should be able to get on-board video.
Yeah, that was supposed to me micro-ATX.
I find lots of motherboards for the AMD processors with the NVIDIA chipset but haven’t seen one for the Intel processor. I’m thinking there is probably a reason for that.
Here’s one.
ETA They seem to be plentiful. Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places?
nvidia doesn’t have a DMI bus license to make chipsets for the Intel Core i-series CPUs. as such, nvidia has shuttered their chipset business. You won’t ever see one for these CPUs. And since AMD bought ATi, you won’t find an ATi chipset for them either. Your only hope is a Core i5-600 series CPU with a matching motherboard.
the board doesn’t have integrated graphics, it only has the support in place for the GPU that’s on the processor package.
What is your reason for not wanting an external video card? You can add a card like this that will preform better than any on board graphics for a very modest price. It doesn’t need its own connection to the power supply like larger cards either. If you look around or wait for a sale you should be able to get a cheap modern budget card for about 20 bucks.
www.tomshardware.com or www.amd.com forums.
They’re about equal. You can get more info at tom’s but faster responses at amd.
I’d second Tom’s Hardware
never mind.
Ars Technica is another good place to go. The main site has shifted a bit away from the original focus on homebuilt PCs to “Science & Technology news”, but the forum still has plenty of people who could answer your questions.
Ah. Should have checked Gigabyte’s website. According to Novatech’s specifications page, it does have onboard graphics.
Thanks everyone for the info.
newegg.com is the biggest supplier for builders these days. They sponsor /host a forum. I’ve got questions answered there.