July 2003 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Pentium 4 Motherboard: ASUS P4P800 Deluxe

Current Cost: $134
Months on list: 2
Price Change: -$11

We chose to stick with the same chipset and board for the Intel platform this month. The 865PE chipset offers support for dual-channel memory and 800MHz FSB CPUs, and is less expensive than a similar motherboard based on the 875P chipset. This is geared for the mid to high-end crowd, and Intel has packed the i865PE chock full of features and priced it very reasonably.

The ASUS P4P800 motherboard is our top choice again this month, and comes with a price drop to boot. The P4P800 is based on the 865PE chipset and has support for 800MHz FSB chips, dual-channel DDR266/333/400 memory, along with Serial ATA. In addition, there is a wide range of overclocking options and BIOS tweaks, including Vcore adjustments and lots of front-side bus headroom. This ASUS board is a great high-end option, especially for only $134.

Athlon XP Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nForce2 Motherboard

Current Cost: $122
Months on list: 3
Price Change: -$6

Until we see the release of AMD's Athlon 64 CPU we are most likely not going to see many new motherboards for Socket A based boards. As such, we will recommend the excellent ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nForce2-based board. In addition to dual-channel memory controller, and 400MHz FSB support, the deluxe version of this board comes with an extra Ethernet controller (3COM), a Serial ATA controller, extra USB 2.0 Ports, IEEE 1394a support, and the more powerful MCP-T Southbridge that features the NVIDIA SoundStorm Audio Processor Unit (APU). The price of this board also dropped a bit this month, and comes in at a very cool $122.

When purchasing an A7N8X make sure that you pick up a revision 2.0 motherboard sporting the new "400 Ultra" tag. These boards are rated at 400MHz FSB speeds, and are the best to operate an Athlon XP 3200+ on. However, if you are a user of the 1.0x revision series, ASUS has updated the BIOS to version 1004 which includes support for 400MHz FSB CPUs, and although we have not fully tested this update at this time, initial reports seem promising.