March Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Motherboards

When selecting a motherboard for our Value Gaming System, the main goal is to find the best overall value, while ensuring you get the most future-proof and high-performance hardware possible. Naturally, these goals are often at odds with each other, and the sticker price is usually the main stumbling block. To find that right mix, we need to ensure that the motherboard is affordable, and includes a nice mix of performance, overclocking and features. Whether you're buying a low-cost gaming system or an ultra high-end powerhouse, the motherboard is still one of the most important components, as it provides the backbone for your entire computer and determines your potential upgrade path.

Athlon XP Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X (nForce2 Ultra 400)

Current Cost: $85
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

This month we again gave some thought to changing the AMD motherboard selection to something a bit more high-end, with additional onboard performance features, but the cash really isn't there for such a significant price jump. Adding features such as Serial ATA and GigaBit LAN are expensive and really not needed for our value system requirements. On the other hand, we have spent a few dollars more and nabbed the latest revision of the ASUS A7N8X motherboard, which features the nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, and comes in at a very impressive price level.

The ASUS A7N8X follows the standard design of an entry-level AMD board, and features the latest NVIDIA nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset revision, which fully supports the 400 MHz front-side bus and the Barton core. Our Athlon XP 2800+ runs on the 333 MHz FSB, but the ability to hit 400 MHz can pay serious overclocking dividends, along with providing a wider upgrade path. Top end Athlon XP models may seem expensive today, but the ASUS A7N8X support for the 400 MHz front-side bus ensures that a potential Athlon XP 3200+ upgrade will be a smooth transition.

The ASUS A7N8X isn't really a major departure from our previous MSI K7N2 Delta-L selection, and supports 200/266/333/400 MHz AMD processors, dual-DDR266/333/400 memory support, AGP 8X, ATA133, USB 2.0, 6-channel audio and integrated LAN. ASUS also includes a lot of overclocking options, and the A7N8X allows front-side bus speed, CPU, DDR and AGP voltage options, and AGP bus locking. Not only do you get all of these features, but the quality at the ASUS name, all at a very attractive price.

Pentium 4 Motherboard: ABIT IS7-E (i865PE)

Current Cost: $80
Months on list: 7
Price Change: -$5

The price of Intel i865PE motherboards continues to fall as time goes by, and we get to knock another $5 off the cost this month. ABIT started out with the goal of inserting a sub-$100 i865PE, dual channel DDR IS7-E motherboard into the equation, and since we first added this board to the Intel mix, the price just continues to get better. At only $80, the ABIT IS7-E motherboard is a gift horse you don't want to look in the mouth, and it really takes a value-oriented design philosophy and combines it with a relatively high-end Intel chipset. ABIT obviously leaves out more expensive features such as RAID or Firewire, but the IS7-E is a performance board with overclocking to spare and more than adequate onboard features.

The ABIT IS7-E includes the basic features of an entry-level i865PE motherboard, such as dual-channel DDR266/333/400 and support for up to an 800 MHz front-side bus. The IS7-E motherboard also includes both Parallel and Serial ATA support (no RAID), 8xUSB 2.0 ports, integrated 10/100 LAN, and 6-channel audio. ABIT has also added their popular SoftMenu overclocking BIOS, with frequency overclocking, along with CPU, memory and AGP voltage selections. The ABIT IS7-E is a superb deal for our Value Guide, and its low price really helps us fit a high-performance Intel platform into a $1K budget.