Price Guides, September 2005: Motherboards
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Howard Johnston on September 16, 2005 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Intel Motherboards
Intel's biggest advantage in the dual core battle is its cheaper CPU cost. However, that gap is narrowed greatly when you take into account the price of Intel chipsets like the 955X and the 945P. If you do decide to go Intel, however, we suggest the 945P over the 955X as the only significant difference between the two is Intel's Memory Pipeline Technology - a feature that doesn't warrant an $80+ price hike.
The 945P arena continues to remain active and competitive. Once again this week our value picks are the Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G [RTPE: GA-8I945P-G], MSI Neo-F [RTPE: MS-7176-020], and D945PSNLK [RTPE: D945PSNLK]. The price gap between the MSI and Gigabyte has narrowed to only $2 so go with your favorite brand.
For those looking for a fast, stable workstation without the need for a high end graphics solution, the 945G might be the board for you. The onboard graphics aren't great for gamers, but are more than adequate for most business apps. Intel offers a variety of its own boards, although if you want a few more tweaking options we would go with the MSI 945G Neo-F i945G [RTPE: MS-7176-040] which has dropped down to $127 this week.
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Cygni - Saturday, September 17, 2005 - link
The ULi/ASRock offering certainly looks mighty juicy in that round up... only one or two NF4 boards in its range, and they lack the features or performance of the ULi. Good stufF!XRaider - Sunday, September 18, 2005 - link
Kris and Manveer,I really like how you guys laid out the article. Keeping it all in separate sections - making it very easy to read and to find items! The old way for pricing guides were pretty much lumped into one section ...i.e. AMD boards would have all flavors tossed into one section making it difficult to search/pick out items.
GREAT JOB GUYS!! Keep it up!!
Anandtech Rocks baby!!
Crassus - Sunday, September 18, 2005 - link
Absolutely. Please keep doing it this way in future price guides.flatblastard - Friday, September 16, 2005 - link
"Springing for an nForce4 Ultra motherboard buys you a few more fancy features like the Creative Labs Sound Blaster 7.1 audio codec."I was under the impression that that codec was only available on the SLI version of the K8N Neo4 from MSI. Now I've been wrong before, and in this case I hope that I am (though not likely ;) ).
TheInvincibleMustard - Saturday, September 17, 2005 - link
I was wondering that same thing, myself ... most nForce4 mobo's I know of use Realtek's AC codec/chips in their boards ...stelleg151 - Friday, September 16, 2005 - link
What about the Jetway?flatblastard - Saturday, September 17, 2005 - link
What about it? Why is it not included in the price guide? Or do you mean that it comes with the SB Live audio codec? If it's the latter, then I think you should check out the manufacturer's website.....Here let me save you the trouble of googling it:http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/product/amd-k8/939g...">Jetway 939GT4-Ultra Specifications
mhoytech - Friday, September 16, 2005 - link
Slight slip of hand to jump ahead several months