hey morris question about soltek board..

[mrjohnsonjr]

do you know anything about the soltek 75-LIV board..

i am considering using it to build a computer for a person whol just wants a simple internet machine... no games or mp3's just surfing the web and checking email......

[mrjohnsonjr]

anybody??????

[morriswindgate]

Just came across this. The board you refer to is basically the Micro-ATX version of the SOLTEK SL-75KAV, except it has intergrated video. Unless you are planning on a micro-ATX case, I suggest that you spend the additional dollar to get the fullsize one as it has two more PCI slots and get a cheap ATI or Powered by ATI video card. Not only will the video be better but overall performance will be enhanced due to no sharing of the RAM that intergrated video uses. A cheapie card will add between 20 and 40 bucks to the build but the performance is worth it.

[mrjohnsonjr]

thanks morris....

the person i am building it for just wants a small computer for email and internet browsing....

so i wanted everything as simple as possible..

they are not worried about video card performance....

[morriswindgate]

I know what they say, but six months down the road they are wanting to add things or they are complaining that Quake doesn't look good on their computer. Remember even old people play games.
So if you build it with intergrated graphics and fill-up the 3 PCI slots, you are stck telling them that there isn't anything they can do other than replace the motherboard and buy a new video card for $150 to $200 plus labor. So you become a jerk who just took their money and left them with a junk computer that will not do the stuff they want it to. As such the next time they want an upgrade they go buy an HP or Compaq.
If you add 40 to 50 bucks to the computer now and six months from now they want to upgrade something. You can say no problem, we can do that for $50.

[mrjohnsonjr]

thanks for the advice morris.....i'll explain the situation and the recommendations and see what he says...

[glc]

For a simple small machine like you describe, save the money and go with the micro integrated board as long as the customer knows up front that future upgrades are going to be very limited. For that kind of proposed use you could even use a MSI Book PC.