Budget Performance and HTPC Boards
We are looking in the $75~$115 range in this category, with a bit of extra wiggle room for the HTPC picks.
Intel
For the Intel side, two boards stand out amongst the others. First up is one of our favorite budget performance boards we have tested in the last few years, although nothing on this board really screams budget. The $115 ($100 with MIR) Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R features the P45 and ICH10R chipsets. Gigabyte also tosses in the Realtek ALC 889a HD Audio codec, Gigabit LAN, 16GB memory support, six 3Gb/s ports capable of RAID 0/1/10/5, two additional 3Gb/s SATA ports, IEEE 1394A, 12 USB ports, and Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 technology. The BIOS caters to the overclocker and this board just performs great. Our E8600 easily reached 540FSB if that is important and did it a very stable manner. Gigabyte also tosses in their EasyTune 6 application along with their DualBIOS technology. All in all, this is one of the better "budget performance" boards we have used in a long time.
Our second board is a favorite also. The $97 ($82 with MIR) ASUS P5Q SE Plus based on the Intel P45 and ICH10 chipsets. The board features one PCI-E x16 slot, two PCI-E x1 slots, three PCI slots, 16GB memory support, Gigabit LAN, 7.1 HD Audio, 12 USB ports, six 3Gb/s SATA ports, and an 8-phase power delivery system. Overclocking has been very good with our E8600 easily reaching over 500FSB -- more than enough for most buyers in this category.
Honorable mentions go out to the Biostar TP43D2-A7 P43 based board, MSI P43 Neo3-F, Foxconn P45A-S, and the ASRock P43 Twins1600.
AMD
The $75 to $115 range is extremely crowded on the AMD side and
there are numerous boards not listed here that we would recommend for a
variety of reasons ranging from performance to features to
support.
First up is the $90 ASUS M3N78-EM based on the NVIDIA GeForce 8300 chipset. The board features one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x1 slot, two PCI slots, 8GB memory support, NVIDIA Gigabit LAN, 7.1 HD Audio, 12 USB ports, five 3Gb/s SATA ports with RAID support, IEEE 1394a, one eSATA port, HDMI/DVI/VGA output, and full support for the Phenom 140W processors. This board offers overclocking capabilities along with being a top notch HTPC capable board. We highly recommend the GF8200/8300 series for the HTPC market due to hardware accelerated BD playback, multi-channel LPCM output, and very good application performance.
Our second board is based on the 790GX chipset. The $100 Biostar TForce TA790GX features the 790GX and SB750 chipsets. Biostar also tosses in 64MB DDR2 Side-Port memory, Realtek ALC 888 HD Audio codec, Gigabit LAN, 16GB memory support, six 3Gb/s ports capable of RAID 0/1/10/5, 10 USB ports, two PCI-E x16 slots (dual x8 CF), two PCI-E x1 slots, and two PCI slots. The BIOS caters to the casual overclocker and this board just performs very well in a variety of tests.
Honorable mentions go out to the JetWay JPA78VM3-H-LF, Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3P, and MSI K9A2 CF-F V2.
HTPC
We have two favorites right now in the Intel category. The $135 Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H and $110 ZOTAC GF9300 feature the NVIDIA GF9400 and GF9300 chipsets respectively. We favor these chipsets over the Intel G45 in the HTPC arena due to superior video playback and overall system performance. Expect to see reviews of both boards shortly as we gear back up in our look at IGP systems. On the AMD side we favor the GeForce 8200/8300 chipsets and particulary like the ASUS M3N78-EM. If multi-channel LPCM is not important, most of the 790GX and 780G boards would make good choices.
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bob4432 - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
this is the board to use if overclocking is of prime importance to you. Our only knock against the board is that it does not overclock quad-core processors as well as the Gigabyte or ASUS boards.in the first sentence you say this is the board (biostar) to get for o/cing, but then state that it won't o/c quads, so imho, this would not be the board to get for o/cing????
the way i read it, you contradict yourself in the whole midrange intel area. why not just recommend the gigabyte or asus boards since they o/c everything well, not just dcs?
zebrax2 - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
if you read the whole paragraph you could easily understand that this board is recommended because of its ability to overclock dual cores and anyway both the gigabyte and the asus board are also recommended anywaysymbul - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
It's a bit late to buy for Christmas I think. The best deals were on Black Friday and the Thanksgiving weekend. I got a brand new Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P for 100$ 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.