[geeks] Intel D201GLY (mini-ITX) video success

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net>
>Date: 2008/02/08 Fri PM 01:48:02 CST
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] Intel D201GLY (mini-ITX) video success

<snip>

>What about speed?  The last time I tried vesa mode on a card was
>dreadfully slow at redrawing programs like firefox or playing video.

Seemed OK with some quick browsing - when things seemed slow, it wasn't obvious if the problem was the Celeron CPU or the video. The video was not horrible at all. I am sure it could do better than the vesa driver, but for occasional desktop use, it's fine. My interest is to have a suitable 1280x1024 desktop for occasional GUI administration or for having several xterms running, not as a primary desktop - for this type of application, the board/driver seems fine.
  
<snip>

>http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cfm?itemno=CA4842002&cmp=AFC-CJ_CBIT#
>
>Have you looked at that?  This is not the board from the gOS machines.
>Instead of 2 PCI slots, it is 1 PCI slot and 1 PCI-e slot (16x physical
>it looks like).
>
>I really like the looks of that board.  I especially like that it should
>work with an ATI x300-x850 or Geforce 7x00.

I have the board in a case, I've played with it a bit, it seems reasonable, but nothing spectacular. It has one PCi slot and one PCI-Express 16x slot. It is an OK desktop board/CPU combo (I think I put Ubuntu on it without incident, but I haven't powered it up for a few weeks)...

There are nice boards from EVGA that have 7x00-series video on-board, and run $70-100 dollars (the top board has RAID, Gigabit Ethernet, and DVI/HDMI connections):

Low-end: http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=112-CK-NF72-K1

Mid-range: http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=112-CK-NF75-K1

"Best" http://www.evga.com/products/moreInfo.asp?pn=112-CK-NF77-A1

I got the last one to use for a media PC (VGA/DVI/HDMI video out give me lots of flexibility) - it was $80 after rebate, and an E2160 CPU was another $70, that should be a pretty decent config., esp. compared with the above VIA motherboard/CPU and discrete video card...

Lionel