April Extreme Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Motherboards

Intel Motherboard: ASUS P5AD2-E Deluxe Retail

Current Cost: $200
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

To compliment our new LGA775-based Pentium 4 Extreme Edition CPU this month, moving to a new 1066 MHz-compliant chipset and upgrading the motherboard as well. Since there is some extra cash on the Intel side this month, we are shooting straight for the top and upgrading to an i925XE Express-based motherboard. The Intel i925XE Express chipset has support for all the latest technologies such as dual-channel DDR2, PCI Express, 1066MHz FSB CPUs, Intel High Definition Audio, SATA, Hyper-Threading, and Intel Matrix Storage Technology. After searching long and hard through a multitude of i925XE Express-based motherboards, we chose to go with the ASUS P5AD2-E Deluxe.

ASUS has consistently offered some of the best enthusiast motherboards that money can buy, so it should come as no surprise that we chose this route for our Intel motherboard. Sporting Intel's latest i925XE Express chipset, this motherboard has support for all the hot technologies and is the perfect home for the Pentium 4-3.73 GHz Extreme Edition processor. Aside from the excellent board layout, the ASUS P5AD2-E Deluxe has a number of high-end features we look for in a motherboard. In addition to the basic options of the i925XE Express chipset, this board has support for 4 SATA drives, integrated 8-channel high definition audio, Gigabit LAN, and all the peripheral ports you could dream of. At $200, the ASUS P5AD2-E Deluxe is rather expensive, but the features and performance is second to none, and make it a perfect choice for our guide.

AMD Motherboard: DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR Retail

Current Cost: $215
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

With NVIDIA nForce4 SLI-based motherboards currently all the rage among enthusiasts, we're upgrading to a motherboard based on arguably the most innovative and powerful chipset for the Athlon 64 processor. While the nForce4 SLI chipset has support for the latest features such as PCI Express, SATA2, NVIDIA RAID, 8-channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet with hardware firewall, the single most exciting feature is definitely the support for dual graphics cards.

Dubbed SLI (Scalable Link Interface), a motherboard equipped with this feature can support up to two PCI Express 16x video cards at the same time, which can result in nearly twice the performance of a single GPU. Users of 3dfx's Voodoo 2 line of cards will remember the simple upgrade path this offers; you can choose to equip a system with a single GeForce 6800-based card now, and then upgrade performance by adding a second one later on.

Currently, one of the hottest nForce4 SLI-based motherboards is the DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR. Aside from the funky colors and unique layout, this board offers support for SATA2, dual Gigabit Ethernet, dual-channel DDR, 8-channel audio, in addition to the usual assortment of peripheral ports. This board also has support for dual PCI Express video cards, which we will be taking advantage of this month as our budget allows. Also included are the hotrod extras that the DFI LANPARTY brand is known for, such as rounded IDE cables, a FrontX panel, a PC Transpo carrying strap, and component and cable UV sensitivity, to name a few. The motherboard's retail price of $215 isn't a lot considering its high-end features and performance, and the support for dual video cards.

System Memory

AMD Memory: OCZ Enhanced Latency Dual-Channel Gold VX 184 Pin 1GB DDR PC-4000 (2x512MB)

Current Cost: $263
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

As AMD is holding off on supporting DDR2 memory, DDR is still the main option for AMD systems. This month we are making a much overdue upgrade in terms of memory performance compared to what we have previously used in Athlon 64 systems. The OCZ Enhanced Latency Dual-Channel Gold memory sports ultra low 2-2-2-5 memory timing making it among the fastest DDR memory we have ever used. While our memory FSB requirements dictate that we only need PC-3200 memory, using PC-4000 memory gives us the extra headroom that might come in very handy down the road when overclocking. Priced at only $263 for two 512MB modules, it's no wonder that the OCZ memory has replaced Corsair as our memory of choice for AMD systems.

Dual-channel memory is now the de facto standard for both AMD and Intel systems meaning that it makes sense for us to purchase memory in matched pairs. Buying a matched pair of memory ensures that both modules are exactly the same leaving no issues when running in dual-channel mode. The OCZ Enhanced Latency Dual-Channel Gold kit features two 512MB sticks of DDR memory satisfying our platform's dual-channel memory needs.

Intel Memory: 2x512-MB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-533

Current Cost: $284
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

This month we moved to Intel's high-end i925XE Express chipset, which necessitated a shift to DDR2 memory. The real-world benefits of DDR2 memory over DDR are not apparent until FSB speeds move higher than 800 MHz, so it was a prime opportunity to match our i925XE Express chipset with the appropriate memory. Moving to a 1066 MHz FSB this month meant using 533MHz capable DDR2, and a dual-pack of Crucial Ballistix DDR2-533 fit the bill quite nicely.

The Crucial Ballistix DDR2-533, like all DDR2 memory, forgoes ultra low latency timing for high clock speed and wicked overclockability. However, the timings of 3-3-3-10 are still very low relatively speaking, and are among the best for DDR2 memory. As the i925XE Express chipset features dual-channel memory support we are going with two 512MB sticks so as to maximize performance. Two sticks of Crucial Ballistix DDR2-533 memory can be found online for approximately $284.