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Future-proofed Mobo

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M

McGrace

Member
​
Joined
Dec 21, 2006
Hi guys,

I am slowly building another computer for our business. We are cash poor for the next few months until contracts start to pay off, so I am building on a budget. I have an Antec case, Corsair 400W PSU, and a WD Caviar Green 1TB so far.

I am building so that I can upgrade later on as prices come down on items. For ex, I have the WD drive already, so I am using it until I get a SSD. This is a business system so 3d performance is not necessary. It is real estate, and there is a lot of work on the internet looking at photos (real estate agents have no idea how to shrink photos) as well as other things. We will have cable internet so ISP will be ok, but maybe photo editing could be a big bottleneck. Plus there are a lot of scanned contracts to look at.

I am thinking the SSD later on and good CPU/RAM will help a lot. So I am looking for a good mobo that I can throw whatever in for now and get a PhII 1055 x6 later on. And throw more RAM in later on.

I don't need any good 3d graphics, crossfire, SLI, super cooling heat sink, overclocked anything, or other non-business tools. But it looks to me most decent motherboards have all that and are priced accordingly. Oh, and f*** Intel since bang for the buck seems not to be their thing at this time.

Question 1: Going with onboard graphics and saving on RAM vs. paying 50 bucks for a low end Vid card. Is this squeezing things in the wrong area and costing me notable performance editing photos and scanned docs/PDF's?

Question 2: Mini-ATX vs. ATX. I notice a significant price savings with mini-ATX mobos. Has anyone gone that way to save money and got bit? It seems the only way it bites you is with expansion slots for PCI or whatnot. Is that correct?

Question 3: Does anyone have an idea of a reliable motherboard that I can throw an Athlon II x4 635 or whatnot in and maybe upgrade later? (Or is this entirely a fools errand?)

Thanks!

___________
McGrace
 
I think that my board would do you well for now. Has onboard HD3300 graphics. mATX boards are OK but I probably wouldn't go that way for a business build. Doubt that the board supports 1055T at the moment. Don't know if there will be a BIOS update for that in the future. Maybe an 890FX or 890GX board might be better for future proofing.

My board

This board is great for the money but you would need to get a graphics card. A decent $50 video card would probably suit you well.

Biostar TA890FXE
 
Last edited:
Well as a rule of thumb future proof and budget don't quite fit together too well. We can give you some great ideas on the cheap though.

Like you said, Mini Atx really only gets you with lack of expansion slots. If you're okay with that, then you should have no problems saving some money on an m-ATX motherboard. Just make sure it is still good quality. Any board you want to buy will have cooling on the mosfets, chipset and south bridge to avoid over heating. It's simply a sign of a higher quality.

The best motherboard that fits those requirments is this Msi board. I'm not a huge Msi fan for personal reasons, but others like them.
 
Unless you're going to be doing a lot of editing on HUGE photos, a dual core and mechanical hard drive will be fine.

EDIT:
Heatsinks on the mosfets and NB/SB is definitely something to look for.
 
McGrace said:
Hi guys,

I am slowly building another computer for our business. We are cash poor for the next few months until contracts start to pay off, so I am building on a budget. I have an Antec case, Corsair 400W PSU, and a WD Caviar Green 1TB so far.

I am building so that I can upgrade later on as prices come down on items. For ex, I have the WD drive already, so I am using it until I get a SSD. This is a business system so 3d performance is not necessary. It is real estate, and there is a lot of work on the internet looking at photos (real estate agents have no idea how to shrink photos) as well as other things. We will have cable internet so ISP will be ok, but maybe photo editing could be a big bottleneck. Plus there are a lot of scanned contracts to look at.

I am thinking the SSD later on and good CPU/RAM will help a lot. So I am looking for a good mobo that I can throw whatever in for now and get a PhII 1055 x6 later on. And throw more RAM in later on.

I don't need any good 3d graphics, crossfire, SLI, super cooling heat sink, overclocked anything, or other non-business tools. But it looks to me most decent motherboards have all that and are priced accordingly. Oh, and f*** Intel since bang for the buck seems not to be their thing at this time.

Question 1: Going with onboard graphics and saving on RAM vs. paying 50 bucks for a low end Vid card. Is this squeezing things in the wrong area and costing me notable performance editing photos and scanned docs/PDF's?

Question 2: Mini-ATX vs. ATX. I notice a significant price savings with mini-ATX mobos. Has anyone gone that way to save money and got bit? It seems the only way it bites you is with expansion slots for PCI or whatnot. Is that correct?

Question 3: Does anyone have an idea of a reliable motherboard that I can throw an Athlon II x4 635 or whatnot in and maybe upgrade later? (Or is this entirely a fools errand?)

Thanks!

___________
McGrace
Click to expand...
1. With an 890GX chipset I think the on-board graphics would handle anything you can throw at it. I wouldn't recommend it for stand-alone games but for pics you won't see any performance increase from a discrete card.

2. mATX can be less robust than ATX so you have to be very careful. There are a (very) few mATX boards out there that would do you well and as Bobnova said, MOSFET cooling (heatsinks to the left of the CPU) and SB cooling are both important for longevity and something many mATX boards lack. A lot of them also have only two RAM slots, which wouldn't stop but would hinder your future RAM upgrade. (With only two slots you could buy a 2x4 Gb pair instead of another 2x2 Gb pair but that would be more expensive.)

3. I like either the MSi board ChanceCoats linked or the Biostar TA890GXE, though the Biostar is missing USB 3 if USB devices are important to you - like maybe a fast scanner or high-speed printer. (USB 2 would be OK for "normal" scanners and printers.) I know you may not need/want some of the extra features these boards have but those same features usually mean better components as well (just like a kitchen with granite counter tops seldom has cheap appliances). ;)


Hope that helped and please post back with any other questions ... :)
 
Last edited:
QuietIce I'm surprised that you recommended two mATX boards. I still think that the TA790GXB3 (my board) would be a great buy for such a build. I just read on Newegg that it will support Thubans with a BIOS flash. Simply put, this board has worked great for me since day one.

If you want to go 890GX then I would recommend something like this ASRock board...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157188

Costs a little bit more. I don't really like the fact that all of the Biostar 890GX boards are mATX.
 
Nothing wrong with mATX if you're running a stripped-down system and not overclocking. I wouldn't recommend them for either gaming or OC'ing boards but for everyday office use they're fine as long as the components (MOSFETs and NB/SB) have good heatsinks ...
 
I just built my Dad two new work computers for his dealership using this motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...93&cm_re=msi_micro_atx-_-13-130-293-_-Product

So far no problems. Using them pretty much for the same type of workload you're planning on running on your new rig.

For the type of work your planning on using the computer for you're not going to need much. This board is strictly for budget though. Reason for picking this board over the ones Quietice recommended is strictly because of price. The ones Quietice recommended have better MOSFET cooling and may last a little longer but by how much who knows.
 
In regards to the photo editing, it's sort of a death by numbers. You're not dealing with computer-savvy people who are sending you photos, and my wife is in no way computer savvy or patient. The death by numbers is you may have to edit 30 photos. They are not enormous per se, they may be up to 5 MB in size. But being able to burn through loading them fast and gimp-ing them down would definitely be beneficial.

I have had good luck with MSI and BioStar before, so this is all making sense. I am definitely not tied to onboard vid, and really don't need the expansion slots. Once the business is churning, we will be able to do a real upgrade or simply another build ground up. I am thinking that micro ATX is definitely looking ok for now.

My only crux is that with a mobo (I once got 3 EPS boards in a row DOA until giving up and getting a MSI) I don't want to buy one on special then wait for RAM to go on special a month later. If the board is DOA like so many have been, I'm fooked. I think the best bet is to wait for either RAM, CPU, or mobo to go on shell shocker discount then get it and get whatever I can get with the other two along with it. Then I can throw it all together when they come in and be sure I'm good to go.

Oh, thanks for all the information, and I never knew to look for heatsinks as a sign of quality. Seems like common sense, but I never figured that one out. :(

__________
McGrace
 
You mention fast photo loading and being able to burn through them. I would go with something like a SSD for fast loading. It may be out of your budget on this build, but in the future, they allow you to load applications and photos extremely fast.

Edit: I ran some tests. Photoshop CS4 loads in 3.5 seconds and 2mb pictures loaded from the SSD are up in 1 second. Much much better times than HDD loading.
 
ChanceCoats123 said:
You mention fast photo loading and being able to burn through them. I would go with something like a SSD for fast loading. It may be out of your budget on this build, but in the future, they allow you to load applications and photos extremely fast.

Edit: I ran some tests. Photoshop CS4 loads in 3.5 seconds and 2mb pictures loaded from the SSD are up in 1 second. Much much better times than HDD loading.
Click to expand...

I can open 8MB or so pics instantly from my WD Green.

Thumbnails on the other hand, cause a TON of disk thrashing, and it would probably be really beneficial to have an SSD for them if you use thumbnail view alot.

Photoshop opens pretty quick off of my SSD too. Maybe 5 or 6 seconds. Most of the Adobe Suite does about the same, except Flash which pulls stuff from every drive in the computer at start up.
 
I just got done upgrading with a money issue myself I went with the gigabyte 890fx since i game some, but I would recommend this board
GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
you not only have amd's newest chipset but you get the upgraded 3.0usb and 6.0 sata , not to mention you can drop a 4 core or a 6 core cpu in it.
you can get a nice amd quad core for under $150 and a few gigs of ddr 3 for about $75, I was using an old athlon 64x2 and I thought it was fast at first this new system is very , very fast and very affordable
 
Not to Hijack, but no such thing exists. This "future proof" you speak of :p
 
McGrace said:
Does this one look any good to you guys?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130290

I have 8GB DDR3 1066 in my main box, I can take one 2GB stick to get a quick build to ensure it works ok and get an Athlon II x4 640 I think for a good price. Maybe wait a few days for a decent combo too on newegg.
______________
McGrace
Click to expand...

That one doesn't have any onboard video so your going to have to get a video card if you purchase that mb.
 
Lack of heatsinks isn't critical if you don't plan on OC'ing or really pushing an OC. My board has no heatsinks but I could purchase some aftermarket ones if needed. I run only about a 12% OC so it really isn't an issue and the mosfets never get too hot. I am also on stock voltage. So it really depends on what you are planning on doing with the build. If you are planning on a serious OC beyond stock voltage then that cooling would be necessary.
 
I don't plan to OC this board since reliability and uptime are essential. It's a business machine.

So no heat sinks is ok?
 
I suppose they would be fine. My sister doesn't overclock, but when I put her computer together, mosfet cooling was a keypoint in my motherboard choice because I wanted 24/7 reliability and longevity.
 
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