Introduction

While we here at TweakTown focus a lot on the higher end technology, we do tend to forget at times the more budget oriented side of the equation. High-end users while growing don't pale in comparison to the OEM and retail markets, especially companies putting together PC packages for sale in your local computer store. Some will have high-end products, but the low-end is where the business lies, you're not going to need a 3 GHz CPU, 2GB of RAM and an 8800GTX graphics card for your standard internet box or your home / SOHO workstation. Most of these are basic setups which usually use an integrated chipset with onboard graphics, and most of them are based on the Intel chipset with GMA.

Intel's platform design has usually been behind that of the retail market, Intel's onboard graphics are quite basic and can't really handle much in the way of 3D applications; not to mention they're also a a memory hog, stealing as much bandwidth as possible.

With the Intel 3 series chipsets, things have changed; thanks to Vista new features are required to get a motherboard certified for Vista validation, and Intel is definitely one to strive for this. The G33 chipset is the latest instalment from Intel, and it's designed for the Vista environment using its onboard graphics system, the GMA3100.

Today we are looking at Foxconn's version of the G33 chipset budget board, the G33M. How does it perform? Let's have a look.