Price Guides April 2005: Motherboards
by Kristopher Kubicki on April 10, 2005 5:30 PM EST- Posted in
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Other AMD Stuff
Unfortunately, it's about that time to start burying Athlon XP motherboards in our guides. With Socket 754 prices still plummeting, and Socket 462 prices starting to rise (enough said), Socket A is looking really pathetic. Coupled with the fact that Windows x64 is already shipping (our full analysis is not far away), investing in Socket A is a poor idea. Even if you are not convinced of the "64-bit revolution", even the poorest Socket 754 Sempron 2600+ processors have an edge over Athlon XP chips.Then again, if you already have an Athlon XP and you just need a replacement board, at least ASUS [RTPE: A7V880] won't leave you out in the cold.
Back in Athlon 64 land, AGP is still rearing its ugly head. PCIe is still our bus of choice, but if you're upgrading to a new motherboard/CPU, there is no need to trash the video card too. nForce3 designs are still showing up each week, so at least some manufacturers believe that AGP won't disappear as fast as Anand and I would like it to. Unlike the nForce4 boards, nForce3 prices are very stable at this point, and we don't expect to see many new price fluctuations anytime soon.
While talking to several manufacturers over the last week, the general indication seemed to be that nForce3 boards would give way to PCIe alternatives very quickly - this contradicts what motherboard designs show. Companies like ASUS and DFI showed us nForce3 motherboard designs for socket 939 during CES 2005, but considering Q2 is well underway and we haven't seen any of these boards, even if they do show up within in the next few weeks, they will have to compete with more mature Gigabyte and MSI solutions. nForce4 continues to look more attractive to us. On the other hand, we are very pleased with VIA's take on AGP for Socket 939 with MSI's Neo2-F [RTPE: MS-6702E-020]. Priced under $100 with Gigabit Ethernet and a good SATA Raid package, this board makes the most sense for AGP. The fact that this board costs $20 less than it did during our last guide just adds icing to the cake.
With nForce4 on Socket 754, we have to wonder if VIA will be able to stay competitive with K8T800. AGP and PCIe are like apples and oranges, but with AGP cards continuing to cost 10% and more over identical PCIe cards, the Socket 754 boards are much more cost effective with PCIe instead of AGP.
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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)