Been back home for about 4 days now and deploying again tomorrow, so didn't really plan to do anything with any of the hardware I got. However, it occured to me that maybe the intergrated graphics might not be powerful enough for some graphically intensive situations I may need for two of my box accounts, so I decided to slap one together temporarily and see how well it runs Everquest.



Added a mouse on top of the PSU for size comparison





It's the J&W mobo with 780G chipset and HD3200 IGP. The CPU is an AMD BE-2400 45w, 4 gigs of GSkill DDR2 800 notebook ram, a coolermaster cpu cooler that is bigger then I thought it'd be (it works fine with it, but is taller then I thought and will make me make a bigger case) 240w HEC PSU 75%+ efficiency.

I loaded Vista 64 Premium on it and patched it to SP1. Then loaded Everquest and patched it all up. Let me say I am very impressed with how well it runs Everquest. I left EQ in default settings which had everything set to near max. These settings are higher then what I use in my box accounts with my full size ATX computers running 8500GT video cards and yet, the ITX builds are running EQ just as well with the higher settings. I ran around small areas (guild lobby) with just under 200 people. When I had particle effects set to max in everything, (which makes it so every spell or glowy sparky weapons near me will cause a bunch of graphically intense light shows that bogs you down) there was lag while running around the near 200 people, but even my Maximus II 8500cpu, 8800gtx 8gb ram main comp. boggs down in those situations. Once I turned particle effects off, there was practically no lag while running around the guild lobby....still filled with near 200 people.

I am truley amazed by this mobo and its IGP. I don't see a reason to get a discrete video card, even for my accounts that are sometimes brought to raids. Although I will make sure the case I buy has a slot to accomadate the vid card, because these builds should be able to play even new MMO's as boxxed accounts. Everquest and probably WoW, it has no problems with at all. I am running around areas that bogs down my full atx 8500GT computers with no problems. For the most part everything runs very smooth.


For cases, I think I will have to build my own, which will end up costing more then buying one that is almost built the way I want ($55). Getting the power switch, reset switch, couple USB connectors cost damn near $55. Then add in cost for case material and my time and effort. However, that $55 case makes space for stuff I don't need at the cost of craming the PSU right over the mobo which no doubt will make things run hot. I can maybe mod it to what I want, will be thinking on that while deployed. If I make my own, the case will be @7"x7"x7" with the mobo sitting horizonatally over the PSU and HDD and maybe a slim DVD burner ( could just use USB drives when needed and not worry about space for a DVD drive at all)

Also, will probably go XP Pro 32 for 4 of the builds and XP MCE or Vista 64 Ultimate for 2. Or maybe all 6 with Vista 64 Ultimate and I just disable UAC for them all. That's about the only thing that still gives me problems with Vista for my box accounts.

Just remembered the mobo has 128mb sideport memory..which when switched on makes it so the intergrated video has it's very own memory and doesn't have to share with anything else. Essentially making it so the HD3200 "intergrated" video on the northbridge behaves as if it were a discrete video card.