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

Pentium 4 Motherboard: ABIT BH7

Current Cost: $87
Months on list: 2
Price Change: -$5

Despite Intel's release of the 875P dual channel DDR400 chipset this month, we decided not the make the jump at this time. With limited vendor choices at launch, we would rather wait until next month to see how the chipset and new boards pan out before taking the plunge. The mainstream Intel Springdale is also rumored to be out in May, giving us potentially even more choice for a high-end dual-DDR motherboard.

For now, the ABIT BH7 (i845PE) at $87 is a great buy and an excellent performance and overclocking board. With 4-phase power management and excellent SoftMenu overclocking tools, not to mention support for Serial ATA, 6-channel audio, 10/100 LAN and USB2.0, ABIT has proven the BH7 to be an excellent Pentium 4 motherboard option.

Athlon XP Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X nForce2 Motherboard

Current Cost: $100
Months on list: 4
Price Change: -$15

For the past three months the ASUS nForce2 A7N8X has occupied its place as the AMD motherboard of choice, and we are going to continue the tradition again this month. Sporting three DIMM slots for a total of up to 3GB of DDR400 memory and with up to two sticks running in dual-channel mode, the nForce2 chipset and the A7N8X prove to be the best yet at supplying high memory bandwidth for the Athlon XP. Sound and video card incompatibilities are almost zero, making this chipset the most stable for the Athlon, especially compared to some of the VIA chipsets.

While lacking some of the onboard features of the Deluxe model, the A7N8X still has a rich feature set including on-board LAN and USB 2.0, in addition to the four mounting holes allowing the placement of water blocks and better heatsinks on top of the processor. Currently ASUS is up to revision 2.0 of this board, and if given the chance, make every effort to confirm this revision before purchasing. The 2.0 revision has support for a 200MHz FSB, which allows for DDR400 and support for the new 400MHz FSB Barton chips, which should arrive on the scene shortly.