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 $70. ASRock throws in a DisplayPort card and a DVI to HDMI convertor besides loading the board out with six 3Gb/s SATA ports featuring RAID 0/1/10, 5.1 HD Audio, Gigabit LAN, one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x1 slot, two PCI slots, and support for 16GB of memory. This board has been rock solid for us and will be AM3 ready.
We also like the NVIDIA 720a based Foxconn 720MX board that features Gigabit LAN, 7.1 HD Audio, four 3Gb/s SATA ports with RAID 0/1/0+1/5, VGA/DVI-D output, one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x1 slot, two PCI slots, Hybrid SLI, and GeForce Boost technologies. This board has been very stable during testing and would make for a great SOHO system.
A couple of honorable mentions in this price range go to the MSI K9A2VM-FD, JetWay JXBlue-N78V, and ZOTAC GF8100. These boards offered good performance for the price range, a high degree of quality for the price, and very good feature sets.
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v12v12 - Thursday, December 18, 2008 - link
I hate to say it, but anyone dumb enough to buy this Sh!_ gets what they deserve. It doesn't take a shopping analysis to figure that this stuff is nothing but BETAWARE. Or more like BEWARE... It's bad enough that M$ is allowed to basically sell a patch-ware OS, now mobo manufacturers are ALLOWED to sell patch-hardware. In the form of "bios updates." PLEASE Do the dang testing YOURSELVES: OC, Stress test etc... WTF are the public/review sites forced to do it themselves — then Hope and pray for a proper firmware to be released to address it?Just like my old NF7-S 2.0 = a GODLY mobo. It's highly OC'd, still passes Prime95 and yet cannot even boot from a damn USB stick? How could that simple innovation be left out? B/c Abit DECIDED to not give a crap and just leave users blowing in the wind...while a POS Dell Inspiron has the bios option???! People PLEASE! If you want to do something about it, DO NOT BUY these types of products until they are properly reviewed by AT and the like and PROVEN: Reliable, stable, and meet any claims or advertising by the manufacturers!
superkdogg - Thursday, December 18, 2008 - link
WANTED: One cheetah on steroids for overclocking experiments. PM me.poohbear - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
thanks for this guide, looking forward to the next one as im really looking at upgrading soon and this article was a wealth of info. cheers.jzodda - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
Nice article. In the mid range category I am impressed with the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P. It's in my opinion the best board I have owned since the Abit BH6 8+ years ago. Its incredible overclocking enables me to run 24/7 stable at 525 FSB. I didn't expect that when I purchased it. My E8400 loves it.AssBall - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
Speaking of Abit... didn't see them lurking around on any of these lists. Are we to conclude that newer Abit boards are no longer top notch equipment, Gary? Or is it just that AT doesn't play with them anymore or they have poor support?DefRef - Tuesday, December 16, 2008 - link
ABIT is out of the mobo business, thus their non-existent profile for years. Too bad. The BH6 and BH6-II were awesome boards.bigboxes - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
I place the blame squarely on the mobo compnay for releasing their products without proper QA. Maybe by then their bios updates will fix the multitude of bugs that infect their products. Until then I'll play the waiting game. :)SonicIce - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
remember then the site used to actually review them and post overclocking results :(tyaiyama - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
I bought it about $260 before $30 MIR in late September. Now it sells less than $200 after MIR. It is feature rich.Chipset: nForce 780a SLI
(nForce 200)
3xPCIe(2.0)x3
Dual GbE
Creative X-Fi Xtreme H/W Audio Card
Everything else in high end M/B can be also found.
strikeback03 - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
is that Instant Boot Technology available on any ITX boards? Would be nice for a carputer.