I had another look through newegg. Seeing as how you used a cheap brand motherboard, here's a cheap brand 790GX board:
Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX A2+ AM2+/AM2 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - AMD Motherboards
which still has two PCI-E 16X slots and still has the powerful IGP and is $100
so that just blows your argument away.
But alas....
When you are talking about a motherboard that has dual pcie slots integrated graphics doesn't matter.
To some people.
And PCI-E slots are not only used for graphics cards, either.
In fact it shouldn't even be there.
Why not?
it's perfect for those who want a cheap upgrade, but can't afford a good video card yet.
Vernong was in that exact position. I gave (yes, gave) him an X2 4600+ and 2GB DDR2-1066, which he is now using in a 780G board.
With any onboard video card he could have gotten on an Intel system, he'd have a lot lower performance.
but the 780G can play COD4 comfortably. And it's possible to overclock it to about double its performance just by putting a fan over the passive heatsink.
Nobody who is going to spend that much money on a mobo
Uh, it's hardly an expensive board. Even then, check out the $100 board I posted.
The only reason people don't tend to use IGP's is... guess what? performance.
I mean, the 790GX can run Crysis. without an extra video card.
[edit]BTW: 790GX can use its own memory, rather than system memory[/edit]
and to say its the best IGP isn't saying much either.
It is when you consider the orders of magnitude better it is over other IGP's
AM2/AM3 may have a better theoretical max through put, but they can't even use it
Sure they can. It depends what programs you're running.
and tests show that even with fsb Intel system still out perform.
They have bucketloads of cache with some pretty good prefetching algorithms, which give them a boost in things like media encoding
But in something like WinRAR, which basically is just a heap of data being pieced together again, the HTT bus gives a nice advantage here.
And when you're gaming, tests have shown that the I/O performance of AM2+ boards has given AMD systems an edge over even Yorkfield systems.
Of course in a month or two this will all be moot because Intel will have QPI so you loose that edge (if it even was one)
Which you'd have to buy a new motherboard, CPU
and RAM for.
x58 will be expensive, and DDR3 is also expensive too.
and if your only selling point for a high end motherboard is that it has good integrated graphics, then your in trouble.
Hmmm, motherboard with no IGP vs motherboard with worlds best IGP and better I/O performance which won't be obsolete soon?
The fact that it has good igp does not justify that price vs the p45. You cold buy the p45 and a a HD 2600 for less.
Not less than the $100 board I posted.
You can't say the Phenoms are good overclockers when it takes ln2 to get a phenom 9950 to 4ghz while a Q6600 can do it on air.
Most Q6600's get about 3.5
same as most Phenom's can with SB750's (on air)
Besides, 4GHZ has been done on DICE with Agena (a far stretch fro LN2). And on stock cooling with Deneb.
[edit]
the Biostar 790GX board can be bought with a 9850 BE for $238.99
[/edit]