March Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide - Page 3

Motherboards

When selecting a motherboard for our Value Gaming System, it is important 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 combination, the motherboard needs to be affordable, but also have a good mix of performance, overclocking, and onboard 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 future upgrade path.

Athlon 64 939-pin Motherboard: MSI K8N Neo4-F (nForce4)

Current Cost: $75 + $4 for 24-pin Cable
Months on list: 2
Price Change: -$7

Throughout 2005, we consistently upgraded our AMD motherboard selection, but we see absolutely no reason to move from the nForce4, especially as prices continue to drop. The move to the Athlon 64 3200+ had no effect on our platform, and there is no reason to overstep our budget for an nForce4 Ultra or SLI motherboard. The nForce4 chipset has support for the newest technologies like PCI Express, and is a high-performance, feature-rich platform. This is especially true, since the Ultra and SLI models are a bit out of our price range, and the standard model does not lose you much in terms of performance or features, with lack of SATA 3.0 Gb/sec. being the main difference. The MSI K8N Neo4-F is a great fit for our guide, and at only $75, it offers a low-cost method of incorporating Socket 939 into our AMD value rig.

The MSI K8N Neo4-F offers a lot for its $75 price tag, and is actually less expensive than many Socket 754 PCI Express motherboards. This motherboard features the nForce4 chipset and has support for all AMD Athlon 64-based 939-pin processors, including the high-end Athlon 64 FX and X2 models. PCI Express is the main feature, as well as a full 16-bit, 1 GHz HyperTransport up/down connection, and virtually equivalent performance to the nForce4 Ultra. Overclockers are also well represented, as MSI is one of the top board manufacturers, and includes all the standard CPU, Memory, Graphics, and Front Side Bus speed/voltage selections in the system BIOS.

The MSI K8N Neo4-F may be an entry-level board in terms of price, but the selection of onboard hardware is equivalent to many higher priced motherboards. The K8N Neo4-F supports Socket 939 AMD processors, and features dual-channel DDR266/333/400 memory support (4 DIMM sockets - 4GB max) through the Athlon 64's integrated memory controller. Other onboard features include PCIe x16 graphics, 1 x PCIe x4, 1 x PCIe x1, 4 x PCI, 2 x PATA with RAID, 4 x SATA with NVRAID, 1 x Floppy, 10 x USB 2.0, 7.1-channel audio, and integrated Gigabit LAN. This is certainly a nice hardware mix for a "value" gaming system, and the MSI K8N Neo4-F gives us the price, performance and features necessary for our AMD system.

Pentium 4 Motherboard: ABIT GD8 (i915P)

Current Cost: $82 + $4 for 24-pin Cable
Months on list: New
Price Change: N/A

The choice of a Pentium 4 motherboard was an incredibly difficult one this month, as we definitely wanted to take advantage of some new product introductions (and the resulting price drops), as well as ensure we had some upgrade possibilities. At the end of the day, the chipset came down to a fully-fledged Intel 915P or a newer Intel 945PL. Both are great choices for our price class, especially as the 975X, 955X, 945P, and 925X/XE models are well out of our budget.

On one hand, we have the powerful 915P, without the 2xDDR limitation of the 915PL we used last month, and essentially moving up a bit in terms of performance and DDR upgradeability. On the other we have the slightly more expensive 945PL, which is basically an upgraded 915PL, with the same dual-memory limit (DDR2 this time), but with the potential to upgrade to the Pentium D dual core line. However, with Intel moving to a next generation micro-architecture in 2006, we picked the best mix of value, performance and features for today, and went with the 915P.

Eventually, we narrowed our motherboard choice down to the ABIT GD8, which offers everything we need a low-cost, high-performance package. It features the Intel 915P/ICH6 Express chipset, and includes a full complement of four DDR sockets, all of which can be utilized. The ability to stick with DDR serves our budget well this month, as many name brand DDR2 modules are priced on par, or even lower, than comparable DDR, there's still nothing that can touch DDR at the entry-level. The ABIT GD8 has a 1 x PCI-Ex16, 3 x PCI-Ex1, 2 x PCI layout, and offers 4 x SATA and 3 x PATA for storage requirements. The remaining onboard options include 6 x USB 2.0, AC'97 6-channel audio and Intel Gigabit LAN.

ABIT is also a well-known name in system overclocking, and the ABIT GD8 offers a wealth of options in their famed SoftMenu BIOS Technology, including a full range of processor frequency selections and a variety of voltage controls (CPU, DDR & chipset). There is also the option to set/lock the PCI Express and PCI bus speeds, along with a full range of DDR speed and ratio selections.

* Note - The i915P and nForce4 motherboards utilize a 24-pin power connector, and although these can be run with a standard 20-pin unit, we recommend purchasing a basic 20-pin to 24-pin adapter cable ($4) for the PSU. We have used these in system testing with no problems whatsoever, and many 24-pin compatible PSU units ship with them.