November 2001 High-end Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Motherboard

Pentium 4 Motherboard: ASUS P4T-E

Current Cost: $160
Months on list: 1
Price Change: N/A

This month, ASUS makes a return to the High End PC Gaming Buyer's Guide with the impressive P4T-E. This is the new version of the popular P4T, but uses the mPGA 478 socket and supports the newest crop of Pentium 4 processors. What has changed a bit is the motherboard layout, and it may take some time to get used to the new positioning of the 4 RIMM sockets, as well as the 2 IDE connectors. Other than that, the P4T-E seems to have picked up where the P4T left off and looks primed to take back the Pentium 4 mPGA 478 performance crown it defaulted over to ABIT. Best of all, the ASUS P4T-E checks in at an incredible price of approximately $160, which makes it a great value as well.

AMD Motherboard: ABIT KG7-RAID

Current Cost: $136
Months on list: 3
Price Change: -$14

One of the best performance motherboard deals has to be the ABIT KG7-RAID, which is a stable, powerful product with full support for the Athlon XP processor. The ABIT KG7-RAID includes 4 DIMM sockets and supports up to 4 GB of system memory! The board also includes 1 AGP and 6 PCI slots, along with ABIT's trademark SoftMenu III BIOS and the HighPoint IDE RAID controller is just icing on the cake. Please note that although it does have 4 DIMM sockets, some care must be taken if you need to use all 4 at the same time. Please consult with your vendor prior to purchasing DDR memory and ensure that the correct type (registered) is included to fully make use of the quad-memory sockets. If you use standard unbuffered DDR memory, then only two slots can be used and maximum memory falls to 2 GB.

Although there are more KT266A motherboards appearing on the market, for our High End Guide, we're waiting a bit longer to see how the products fare in head to head comparisons as well as how the KT266A itself holds up over the longer term. For those who just can't wait, yet demand the high-end features of the KG7-RAID, the ASUS A7V266-E should be right up your alley. It's got all the performance features of the KG7-RAID and matches it with an on-board IDE RAID option as well. Please note that you will spend significantly more for this board, with prices ranging upwards of $180 for the IDE RAID model.