Price Guides April 2005: Motherboards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 10, 2005 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Athlon 64 PCIe
nForce4 has really taken off over the last two months and since our last guide, we have seen another 10 motherboards added into the RTPE. While it's great to see nForce4 show more maturity, the real news over the last few weeks (to us) has been the introduction of Socket 754 PCIe motherboards. The nForce4 "4X" chipset provides enough of the rudimentary PCIe support so that low end Athlon 64 and Sempron systems are not much more affordable. For those who follow our video card guides, you may recall the relatively high price of AGP low end video cards. With ATI's HyperMemory and NVIDIA's TurboCache cards, low end GPUs are now much more affordable, as long as you have PCIe. Socket 754 Semprons combined with TurboCache/HyperMemory video cards on sub $80 motherboards seem like an awesome leap forward to us - but then again, any reason to bury AGP always seems to get us excited. Below, you can see the new Socket 754 nForce4 motherboards in our system.That isn't to say that NVIDIA is the only player in the Socket 754 PCIe game. VIA has a few 754 boards based on the K8T890, but the only retail board available right now seems to be the Soltek SL-K890-754G [RTPE: SL-K890-754G]. Hopefully by the time our next guide rolls around, there will be even more options on the 754 platform.
Of course, the stars of the PCIe world are still those nForce4 Socket 939 motherboards. There are still a few late comers to the party, but all of the Tier 1 and most of the Tier 2 guys have pretty solid offerings at this point. Since our mini roundup a month ago, board prices have dropped dramatically, putting the MSI nForce4 Neo4 Platinum SLI [RTPE: K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI] a little bit cheaper than the DFI nForce4 SLI-DR [RTPE: LanParty SLI-DR] board that also won the gold award.
However, nForce4 doesn't come exclusively in the SLI variety; and there are certainly a few nForce4 Ultra boards that we find very attractive. The ASUS A8N-E [RTPE: ASUS nForce4 Ultra (939) A8N-E] comes with one of the better feature sets available and also throws in some very good overclocking features for modest overclockers. However, going on price alone, the four-month-old Chaintech VNF4 Ultra [RTPE: Chaintech nForce4 Ultra (939) VNF4 Ultra VE] set the bar for any other nForce4 board to follow. The Chaintech board won't set any speed records and leaves a little bit to the imagination as far as features, but if you just need a rock solid Socket 939 board, this is the one to have.
Although we really expected K8T890 motherboards to flood the market since February, it looks like only a few motherboard manufacturers were anxious enough to adopt VIA's solution. We feel that the NVIDIA based boards are a little more stable and readily available at this point, but ASUS and Abit both have comparable boards.
Finally, don't neglect the newcomer to the AMD world, ATI. The Xpress 200 chipset didn't seem to grab a lot of manufacturer support, but MSI's RS480M2-IL [RTPE: RS480M2-IL] really is a nice board for the price, particularly for an HTPC setup. For under $100, MSI and ATI have one of the best solutions for Socket 939, particularly considering the integrated Radeon X300 video. Unfortunately, the board lacks Gigabit Ethernet and comes in a MicroATX form factor.
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arfan - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
#10 i am agree with u, i don't know why anandtech doesn't review all NF4 Ultra vs VIA K8T890. why we must wait so long ??? Please your comment anand....knitecrow - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
Forget VIA, I am waiting for the ATI athlon64 chipsets myself.Those should be good.
ChineseDemocracyGNR - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
I have a few comments... :)"The ASUS A8N-E comes with one of the better feature sets available and also throws in some very good overclocking features for modest overclockers. "
a few words later...
"The Chaintech (VNF4 Ultra) board won’t set any speed records and leaves a little bit to the imagination as far as features, but if you just need a rock solid Socket 939 board, this is the one to have."
These two boards have the exact same featureset: what the nForce4 Ultra provides and nothing more (no Firewire, extra disk controllers, extra network controllers, etc). They also share similar overclocking options.
They're very similar but were described very differently. The ASUS has a better bundle (more cables) and is $30 more expensive.
"We feel that the NVIDIA based boards are a little more stable and readily available at this point"
More readily available, yes. More stable, what?
I haven't seen any problems (and definataly no drivers/BIOS issues) on the few K8T890 available, so I don't know what makes the nForce more stable.
Perhaps AnandTech has some results from in-house reviews, but now comes my final comment...
how come there's so little coverage of AMD PCI-E boards here at AnandTech? No review of the ATI, VIA or SiS chipsets... basically no nForce4 Ultra production boards (only DFI). I have no idea what the problem is, but I have to say I'm disapointed.
One minor correction: "Abit nForce4 Ultra (939) AN8"; the AN8 is an nForce4 non-Ultra board. The only ABIT nForce4 Ultra is the Fatal1ty, so far (they may release an AN8 Ultra).
arfan - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
In Indonesia DFI NF4 Ultra sell $200 and DFI NF4 SLI $220 :((flatblastard - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
I agree #7....better to ditch AGP now, rather than put up with the hassle of instability at the end of a technology lifecycle.PrinceGaz - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
The problem with AGP was that it was a quck fix for a specific problem, which then had extra features bolted onto it along with doubling the speed a few times whenever it needed to be updated, making for a very picky and potentially unstable solution.Remember all those problems with crashed systems and drivers complaining of infinite-loops? If so you'll be glad AGP is on its way out and being replaced with a much better designed and future-proofed replacement.
mongoosesRawesome - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
What was so terrible about AGP? I've never felt there anything inherently wrong with AGP, especially seeing as video cards never even got close to using up its bandwidth.bupkus - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
I'm training myself to both skip the 1st post and to skip anything that begins with "In Sov....."I'm getting better at it.
I do believe it's unfortunate that these Comment posts have become so adolescent. It wastes the time of adults who have a genuine interest in the topic.
For those "first post" addicts, try doing a first post in the forums. You can always be the first poster there. Of course there you'd probably get a vacation from the forums.
AnandThenMan - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
In Soviet Russia, when first person post "first post" he get last request.I can't believe how far VIA has fallen out of favour. Wonder what their market share numbers are lately.
screech - Sunday, April 10, 2005 - link
@#1:First intelligent poster! (other then #2 of course)