[jack-o-bytes]

Hi.

I am trying to find a motherboard for socket AM2 that doesnt have built in graphics. I have heard that they are faster than ones with built in graphics and any sujestions of which motherboards for socket AM2 would be great. Thanking in advance

Jack-O-Bytes.

[lawson_jl]

What you have heard is not entirely true. While it is true any componet will use CPU cycles that doesn't mean your not getting anything out of it.

If you disable the onboard graphics and just use an onboard graphics card the motherboard will work just as well as any other. Or if you can use Hybrid XFire to get a good performance boost with your onboard graphics card.

[baladio]

Yeah, the add-in video cards can be much faster than the onboard ones, but it doesn't mean necessarily that the rest of the motherboard is slower. There can be some good things about having onboard graphics:
- If your add-in video card fails, you can still use the onboard to help find out what's wrong, or you can just use it as backup.
- Like lawson said, if you have the right motherboard and add-in card, you can use onboard graphics and the add-in in Hybrid Crossfire; I've also heard about Hybrid SLI.

However, if you're concerned about the space your motherboard takes, one without onboard graphics might take a little less space, and it might be more suited for the power user.

Here is one that I recommend if you want 1 (not two) fast PCI Express graphics card in a basic system:
GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P
This would suit a gamer requiring the fastest single graphics card to play any game well. As for the AM2 socket, it doesn't make for the fastest CPU, but it should do the job for pretty much any game. Of course, this motherboard will take any video card that goes into a PCI Express slot (including 1.1), and even one that only needs a x1, x4, or x8 PCI-e slot.