Price Guides April 2005: Motherboards

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.