Price Guides, February 2005: Motherboards
by Kristopher Kubicki on February 12, 2005 3:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Athlon 64 AGP
For those of you still in AGP land, don't worry as nForce3 and K8T800 still have a lot of life in them. Tier 2 manufacturers that missed the nForce4 boat have redesigned many of their existing nForce3 solutions and re-released them on Socket 939 and 754. The most interesting case in point is the Abit NF8 [RTPE: Abit NF8] – a sub $100 motherboard that should give MSI and Chaintech a run for their money.
Also notice that the Tier 1 guys pretty much dominate the Socket 939 nForce3 sector right now, but their grip is slowly loosening to some of the more aggressive Tier 2 manufacturers like Abit and DFI. Unfortunately, you still pay through the nose for AGP on Socket 939, and PCIe video cards are generally cheaper in the mid-range. If you don't need to provide legacy support for your existing video card, you are almost certainly better off buying a Socket 939 nForce4 or Socket 754 K8T800 motherboard.
VIA just kind of fell into the value roll for Socket 939 over the last few weeks. If you don't overclock, but still need a stable feature packed board,
MSI's Neo2-F [RTPE: MS-6702E-020] is pretty unsurpassed in price/performance. Coupled with a Socket 939 Athlon 64 3000+, you'll have a nearly unbeatable $250 combo.
EPoX and Biostar are also attempting to break into this nForce3-Socket 939 market, if ever slowly. DFI will also have an offering that will ship within the next few weeks.
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ChineseDemocracyGNR - Sunday, February 13, 2005 - link
#9,no he's not kidding. There are several reports of dead boards, or boards that killed PSU's, memory modules and processors.
Both moderators of dfi-street had their boards die on them.
And not just related to this, but if you really want to know the truth you can't settle for AnandTech's review of any product.
bersl2 - Sunday, February 13, 2005 - link
On Thursday night, the MSI nForce4 Ultra board hit $145 + $5 shipping on NewEgg. It's out of stock right now, though.overclockingoodness - Sunday, February 13, 2005 - link
#8: You are kidding, right? The latest DFI motherboards are the best of the best. Check out the latest AnandTech review if you want to know the truth.arswihart - Sunday, February 13, 2005 - link
no one know what the DFI's performance is yet, so I don't know what you're talking about. And looking at various hardware forums on the net, there seem to be more problems with DFI than with Epoxoverclockingoodness - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link
Yep, I agree with you justly. Just because SiS chipsets are not for extreme users doesn't mean they are not a worthy contender. As you already know, enthusiasts make minority of the PC buying population. Only if you guys reviewed SiS based motherboards, value users may want to look into them. NVIDA, VIA and Intel aren't everything.justly - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link
I don't understand why Anandtech seems to have such a hard time recognizing SiS as a chipset option.Why is SiS listed at the end of the last page under "other deals" and not under "Athlon 64 AGP", the SiS 755FX is a "Athlon 64 AGP" chipset is it not?
When doing a search for SiS chipsets why "only" search for the 755FX chipset?
Maybe you could explain how "SIS clearly lost the "oomph" they once had", as far as I can recall every Anandtech review of (or comparison to) a SiS based motherboard (since the days of the 735 chipset) has shown SiS as a good if not a excellent chipset for all but the most extreme of enthusiasts/overclockers.
I just can't fathom why SiS (and ULi/ALi) seem to be looked at by the Anandtech staff as if they are lepers and can't be associated with the likes of nVidia and VIA when they often perform as good as if not better than equaly priced (or even more expensive) boards using these other chipsets.
PrinceGaz - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link
I'm sure it'll be included in an upcoming nForce4 roundup. Epox's mobo will have to be something special to outperform DFI's though.arswihart - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link
specifically, forgot to mention, they left out the 9npa (nf4), and did not mention 9npa-sli which will be released shortly. Also, did not mention the 9nda3+ that they reviewed. Thats not very respectful to Epoxarswihart - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link
amazing, they totally ignored Epox, the best motherboard maker out thereand they have yet to issue an update to there negative review of the 9nda3+, to my knowledge, this is the most trouble-free 939 motherboard out there today. They have new BIOS code that fixes the early memory limitation Anandtech flamed about. Basically, now that I own a 9NDA3+, I can't really take Anandtech's reviews for a grain of salt.
Manzelle - Saturday, February 12, 2005 - link
Graph states 2001 as the year...