Midrange Performance
Moving on up in price, we have the midrange performance segment, with prices stretching from $125 to $200. Yes, like GPUs we now include $200 motherboards in the "midrange" price segment. Just remember that similar to graphics cards, for many people there's no reason to look beyond the midrange offerings.
Intel
Honestly, after using the Gigabyte EP45-UD3R, we wondered what boards could be recommended in the $125 to $200 range. We found a couple, mainly based on excellent performance for the active enthusiast and of course great feature sets.
A top P45 board for overclocking the Wolfdale dual-core processors is the Biostar TPower I45 that is currently selling for around $160. This board easily reaches 600+ FSB with a good E8600 while offering a very good feature set.Without spending over $200 on high end P45 or X48 boards, 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.
The big brother to the UD3R in our budget category is the $137 Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P that has a similar feature set but adds a second x16 slot (in place of a PCI slot) for dual x8 CrossFire operation. The board provides an excellent overclocking platform along with great stability. If the second x16 slot is not important to you, we suggest sticking with the UD3R.
We really like the $144 ASUS P5Q-E that features the P45 and ICH10R chipsets. ASUS provides the ADI AD2000B HD Audio codec, dual 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, 8-phase power design, and Quiet Thermal technology. Overclocking has been very good with our E8600 reaching a 540FSB level and stability has been excellent also.
Honorable mentions go to the unique uATX based DFI LP JR P45-T2RS, MSI P7N SLI Platinum, and EVGA 750i FTW boards.
AMD
This a tough category as there are several very good boards grouped in the $140 range; however, we did not find any boards near $100 that performed as well as boards in the $150+ range, unlike in the Intel section. As a user, you must make a choice between an NVIDIA or AMD chipset if you ever plan on running a CrossFire or SLI setup.
On the 780a SLI front we really like the ASRock K10N780SLIX3-WiFi and Foxconn Destroyer boards. The ASRock 780a SLI offers a balanced combination of features, performance, and support while the Destroyer is one of the top AMD overclocking boards we have in the labs now.
We think the $190 price tag is too much for a 790FX/SB750 setup, but we cannot deny the fact that the ASUS M3A79-T Deluxe is one of the most loaded and best performing AMD boards we have used this year. ASUS loads the board with Gigabit LAN, ADI AD2000B 8-channel HD audio, IEEE 1394 support, four PCI-E x16 slots (dual x16, tri x16/x8/x8, or quad x8), two PCI slots, a single eSATA port, and six 3Gb/s SATA ports featuring RAID 0/1/10/5. The BIOS is fully featured for overclocking and we easily reached 3.5GHz on our 9950BE.
Although expensive for a 790GX board, the DFI LP JR 790GX-M2RS is a uATX board designed with overclocking in mind. We really like this board for a fast small form factor setup. Our other two 790GX choices are the Biostar TA790GX3 A2+ and Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H.
Honorable mentions go to the MSI DKA790GX Platinum, Foxconn A79A-S, and the extremely impressive but not widely available J&W MINIX 780G-SP128MB. The J&W board is based on the 780G and is not considered a performance board, but its cost places it in this category. However, if you are looking to build an AMD based ITX form factor setup, this is a great board to purchase.
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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.