Nasty looking PC Chips motherboard

danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
edited July 2003 in Hardware
Take a look at this motherboard. <b>Integrated 256MB RAM</b> and <b>Integrated 200MHz FSB Duron</b> max of 768MB of RAM.

<a href="http://www.pcchipsusa.com/prod-m810l-v90m.html&quot; target="_blank">PCChips M810L V9.0M</a>
<img src="http://www.pcchipsusa.com/M810L_V90M-large.jpg"&gt;

Comments

  • CaffeineMeCaffeineMe Cedar Rapids, IA
    edited July 2003
    That's actually an interesting board. $109 at Newegg.

    Look, all hardware has it's place, this might be good as an "appliance" PC, an email/web station in a kitchen or other area, or for grandma's Win98 email/freecell machine.

    My concerns lie in the integrated chip and memory, mostly memory. If the memory (onboard) fails, is the whole board h0sed?
  • danball1976danball1976 Wichita Falls, TX
    edited July 2003
    I would imagine so. Maybe there is an option to turn off the power signals to the onboard memory. But then you have the CPU, being that it is also integrated, I guess you would have to buy a new mobo if it dies as well.

    Oh, I looked at the image on NewEgg, the DIMM slot is the regular 168 pin PC100 or PC133 RAM slot. :eek:

    Read this page: http://www.redhill.net.au/b-bad.html
    It will tell you how PCChips was during the 80's and 90's
  • CaffeineMeCaffeineMe Cedar Rapids, IA
    edited July 2003
    PC Chips MIGHT have a good solution here w. the integrated processor. They are able to design a board around a fixed processor, so they know, and will always know, EXACTLY what is occuring between the bus, the memory, the integrated video, etc. In theory at least, this could result in a very reliable board. This could allow for very stable settings to be programmed into chips, and the BIOS custom made to allow for stable/optimized settings to all hardware. By removing variables (diff. manuf. of memory, diff. processor speeds/types, diff. video cards, diff. BIOS settings) they might be making for themselves a high quality board. Sure, probably a poor choice for most of us here, but maybe a good choice for a cheap office PC or other platform where no frills are needed.

    In practice, the above may not ring true! :)
  • QCHQCH Ancient Guru Chicago Area - USA Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    Nice idea... for less than $200 (plus software) you can have a good homework board/ email/ internet browsing. Would really trust it for anything else though... cool idea. It's the e-machines but one step further.
  • WuGgaRoOWuGgaRoO Not in the shower Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    but can it fold?!
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited July 2003
    If it were in Flex-ATX form factor, then it'd be interesting. It would totally stomp VIA's C3 and EPIA in performance, and still have an acceptable heat output. But the flat-lying RAM chips would be a waste of space in a Flex-ATX form.

    It is kinda nice to have a complete computer for such a low price, but by buying a K7S5A or similar cheap board and Duron and RAM serperately, it wouldn't cost much more and then you'd be able to replace something if you wanted/needed to. I follow the same logic with my stereo system :).
  • CaffeineMeCaffeineMe Cedar Rapids, IA
    edited July 2003
    Just for grins, I just spec'd this out on Newegg. Board, case, 17" monitor, 20 GB HDD, 52x CD R/W, FDD, KBD, mouse, and speakers, new LEGAL copy of Windows XP Pro, the whole kit and kaboodle, the whole nine yards, the full schmeer shipped to my door....


    $560 and change.

    Pull out XP and give Grandma your license to Win98 which you haven't used in years anyway, $414.
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