May High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Pentium 4 Motherboard: ABIT BD7II-RAID

Current Cost: $133
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

Deciding on the Pentium 4 motherboard selection probably took as much time as the rest of the guide put together. That is because, unlike AMD and the KT333, there is really no default Intel motherboard choice for high-end performance, features, overclocking and compatibility. The SiS645DX is very attractive, but few manufacturers are attaching all the bells and whistles, while the VIA P4X333 is intriguing but not well supported by the high-end manufacturers. The i850E is also a nice choice, but PC1066 is still out of our budget, and performance using standard PC800 is still below a high-end DDR solution. This leaves us with the i845E and i845G, and even here there are hurdles to overcome. The i845G supports DDR333, but few vendors are equipping them for high-end use, while the i845E has many high-end configurations but is without official support for DDR333.

Talk about a dilemma, but we're making our choice the ABIT BD7II-RAID. This i845E motherboard includes all the high-end features, and is potentially the best DDR overclocking base for a 533 MHz Pentium 4. It supports a true 533 MHz FSB, includes all the options needed to take it further (including static AGP/PCI speeds) and even has a DDR divider setting that allows 350 MHz+ DDR speeds at the 533 MHz FSB. Overall, we can't see you getting higher performance or overclocking out of any comparably priced DDR solution.

Of course, these are simply recommendations, so if you want to blow the budget and nab an i850E with gobs of PC1066, then this would potentially be the fastest option. Just remember that standard RDRAM RIMM format is fast becoming obsolete, or at least will be, once RAMBUS introduces their new dual-channel PC1066 modules.

Athlon XP Motherboard: ASUS A7V333 RAID

Current Cost: $135
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

The fastest Athlon XP chipset is currently the KT333, so that makes our choice a bit easier. Unfortunately (for us, not you), there quite a few very impressive KT333 motherboards to choose from, which once again ramps up the level of difficulty. One that really caught our eye is the ASUS A7V333 RAID. This motherboard has all the integrated options, including IEEE Firewire, LAN, Audio and IDE RAID, as well as offering one of the more solid bases for the Athlon XP. There are still a few issues with this board (such as undocumented jumper settings), and it was a very close race between it and the EPoX EP-8K3A+. In the end, we felt a bit more comfortable recommending the ASUS A7V333 RAID for a wide range of user knowledge and experience levels.