Budget Motherboards
For those with around $60~$75 looking for a solid SOHO board, we recommend the following products.
Intel
On the Intel side of the fence, one very interesting board is the ZOTAC NF630i ITX. Featuring the same GeForce 7100 chipset in our entry level selection, you also get two SATA 3Gb/s ports, a PCI-E x1 slot, 4GB memory support, 5.1 HD Audio, DVI/VGA output, and 8 USB ports. If you are looking for a basic ITX board, this one should be at the top of the list.
A couple of honorable mentions in this price range go to the XFX GeForce 7150 uATX board and the Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L. Both boards offered above average performance for the price range, a high degree of quality, and very good support.
AMD
The 780G chipset is one of the best budget IG designs we have worked with over the years. This is the chipset that made integrated graphics relevant again. One of the best boards in this price category is the ASRock A780FullDisplayPort (whew, long name) based on the 780G and SB700 chipsets for $70. ASRock throws in a DisplayPort card and a DVI to HDMI convertor besides loading the board out with six 3Gb/s SATA ports featuring RAID 0/1/10, 5.1 HD Audio, Gigabit LAN, one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x1 slot, two PCI slots, and support for 16GB of memory. This board has been rock solid for us and will be AM3 ready.
We also like the NVIDIA 720a based Foxconn 720MX board that features Gigabit LAN, 7.1 HD Audio, four 3Gb/s SATA ports with RAID 0/1/0+1/5, VGA/DVI-D output, one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x1 slot, two PCI slots, Hybrid SLI, and GeForce Boost technologies. This board has been very stable during testing and would make for a great SOHO system.
A couple of honorable mentions in this price range go to the MSI K9A2VM-FD, JetWay JXBlue-N78V, and ZOTAC GF8100. These boards offered good performance for the price range, a high degree of quality for the price, and very good feature sets.
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bob4432 - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
this is the board to use if overclocking is of prime importance to you. Our only knock against the board is that it does not overclock quad-core processors as well as the Gigabyte or ASUS boards.in the first sentence you say this is the board (biostar) to get for o/cing, but then state that it won't o/c quads, so imho, this would not be the board to get for o/cing????
the way i read it, you contradict yourself in the whole midrange intel area. why not just recommend the gigabyte or asus boards since they o/c everything well, not just dcs?
zebrax2 - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
if you read the whole paragraph you could easily understand that this board is recommended because of its ability to overclock dual cores and anyway both the gigabyte and the asus board are also recommended anywaysymbul - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
It's a bit late to buy for Christmas I think. The best deals were on Black Friday and the Thanksgiving weekend. I got a brand new Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P for 100$ during that time. At that price point, everything else is moot, unless you really need a x48 chipset motherboard.djc208 - Wednesday, December 17, 2008 - link
I jumped on that one as well. If anything it was nice to see it recommended to re-affirm my purchase. Should have gotten a second one for my Sage server with all the ports on it, but it'll get that as a hand-me-down when I finally go to something with DDR3.Noya - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
I gotta say the best deals were on eBay thanks to Microsofts Live Cashback. From Black Friday to that Sunday, they were offering 30% cashback. And if you were smart, you bought from a buyer that combined the shipping in the price and claimed "free shipping".I was on a budget as usual, but bought a Gigabyte UD3p for $84.50 and a Q8200 for $119 (e8400 was $121, but I wanted a quad as I only upgrade every 2 years). Besides, the UD3p overclocked my Q8200 to 3.3ghz without even trying. Fry's had 2x2gb Ballistix DDR2-800 for $20 with rebate, though their site was laggy for a few days.
Mwave.com was selling tons due to valid rebates also as the invoice was from mwave.com.
Graphics cards were crazy cheap- 4870 1gb @ $165, gtx260 core 216 @ $175, gtx280 @ $240-250 and the 4870x2 @ $300-315.
Wesley Fink - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
Where were motherboard deals on Black Friday? CompUSA is gone from retail, Circuit City and Best Buy were never real motherboard players, and Fry's is only in the West.Etailers have been running special pricing all along and you can buy through early next week and still get a motherboard in time for Christams from Newegg, ZipZoomFly, mwave and others.
Still others will get cash or gift cards for Christams that they will use to buy motherboards, video cards, memory, and other computer components AFTER Christmas. This article and the other guides that will appear this wekk will be very useful to many potential buyers, if not all.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
I thought Black Friday was very weak this year. Maybe CompUSA leaving the market is to blame, but there wasn't anything I though was worth getting up very early for. My brother-in-law and I went to Circuit City around 8AM, he bought a wireless keyboard/mouse, I bought a USB TV tuner, we both would not have cared much if they were sold out. We then swung by Sears to pick up a My First Craftsman set for a friend's kid and went home. Unless you were looking for a TV or still chasing a Wii this was not a good year.JeBarr - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
Yes an article such as this is a tad lat for christmas anyways. Not just here but most all review sites seem to have gotten lazy this year when it comes to holiday-type buying guides. I guess too much time was spent beta testing all those x58 boards, didnt leave much time for anything else.Elvis2 - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
I like the layout :)flipmode - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
With that $170 price of the DFI x48 mobo, I am surpised with the recommendation of the $160 Biostar P45 mobo. I am curious, what is the thinking there? Is there something wrong with the DFI mobo? Because if not, how could it *not* be the *only* recommendation in the $150 and above range? Even for people that don't want to spend more than $150 I'd say save up the extra $20 to get the x48 fer cryin out loud.