October Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Motherboard

When we choose a motherboard for our Value Gaming System, we really try and get the best bang for our buck, while trying to maintain the most future-proof design. This isn't always the easiest task, and we also have to ensure that the board in question is affordable, and with a nice mix of performance, overclocking and features to boot. Whether you're buying a low-cost gaming system or an ultra high-end powerhouse, the motherboard is still one of the most important purchases, as it provides the backbone for your entire computer.

Athlon XP Motherboard: MSI KT4 Ultra

Current Cost: $109
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

For any Athlon XP system, buying into current technology is usually the best way to get the hottest features, highest performance and support for the newest hardware. The 333 MHz Athlon XP's are coming, and we're looking at the KT400 as the right buy to assure future upgradeability, along with support for DDR400 speeds. Our actual motherboard selection is the MSI KT4 Ultra, which fits our price, performance features requirements perfectly. These include DDR400, AGP 8X, ATA-133 RAID, USB 2.0, on-board 6-channel audio and ATA-133. We're sticking with the standard KT4 Ultra, but there are models sporting Bluetooth and Serial ATA functions, for a bit more cash.

The KT4 Ultra follows the standard MSI rule of combining high performance and low price into an unbeatable combination for the value buyer. Whenever we start compiling a Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide, MSI is always at the top of the list, and for very good reason.

Pentium 4 Motherboard: EPoX EP-4SDA5+

Current Cost: $110
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

The selection of a Pentium 4 motherboard not only takes the price, features and performance options into consideration, but also places a higher emphasis on overclocking our Pentium 4-1.8A into the stratosphere. The SiS 648 seems to be a perfect choice, as it offers high-end performance at a very attractive price point, while also sporting a 533 MHz front-side bus and support for DDR400. This makes the SiS 648 the natural solution to providing high-end gaming performance to our value system, and there are a host of very attractive products from MSI, ABIT, ASUS and EPoX that really caught our eye.

In the end, its combination of superb performance, high-end memory speeds (we could select 500+ MHz DDR!) and low price made the EPoX EP-4SDA5+ a near-perfect selection. This is a beast using either DDR333 or DDR400, and its overclocking options are also extremely good. Add in AGP 8X, ATA-133, USB 2.0 and even on-board 6-channel audio and (optional) Firewire, this is one of the more feature-rich EPoX boards we've seen. Assuming a prime CPU, taking the Pentium 4-1.8A to 2.4 GHz will not be held back by the EPoX EP-4SDA5+, as it includes all voltage, FSB and memory controls in an easy-to-use System BIOS.