Price Guides April 2005: Motherboards

PCIe Intel

We were a little disappointed that VIA's PT894 launch still hasn't produced a retail motherboard. An alternative to Tumwater for Intel SLI would be a neat novelty, but as Intel preps to launch 945/955 in the next couple of weeks (days?), we will surely see some interesting motherboards very soon. Let's also not forget ATI's upcoming Intel SLI motherboard nor NVIDIA's (in)famous nForce4 Intel Edition. We will have some words on Intel nForce4 boards in the very near future, but from some of our preliminary trials, it seems that NVIDIA has a "nowhere near shipping" chipset. If we follow the evolutionary chain of paper launches over the last few years, maybe by this time next year, we will be introducing products shipping in 2007.

Of course, Intel surprised us with a launch of Pentium 4 6xx where we could actually buy processors the day that the NDA lifted. This would be a very welcomed surprise for 945/955, and may not be too unrealistic. The second generation Intel DDR motherboards (865/875) shipped before the NDA lift dates. We have already seen the second generation 955X motherboards in some of our testing too. It only makes sense; if Intel starts pouring their dual core processors into the retail channel, the boards had better be there first.

Until then, however, we are still stuck with i915 and i925. The EPoX EP-5EPA+ [RTPE: EP-5EPA+] won a silver award in our 915P motherboard roundup several months ago, but it still packs the mightiest performance per dollar today. However, the excellent ASUS P5GD1 (non-deluxe) also has some great features plus the flexibility of DDR1 memory.


Last month, we highlighted some of the advantages of buying an 865PE motherboard with a Socket 775 adaptor. Since then, the price disparity between PCIe and AGP video cards opened up even more. The 865PE upgrade sounds like another novel idea, but unless you have a really nice AGP video card, we don't recommend it.


Once again, the cheapest 925X boards start at $160, which really doesn't make any sense considering the nearly identical performance of so many 915P boards. With a probable early ship date on Intel's next generation motherboards, if you're going to splurge on such an expensive Intel motherboard, at least get one that is dual core capable. 955X motherboard also support the faster DDR2-667 bus, which just hurts the case for 925X even more.


The Pentium M "saga" continued last month with the unveiling of ASUS's Pentium M to Pentium 4 socket adaptor. Although Anand has heralded Pentium M for years, even he was a little unconvinced as to whether or not Pentium M really has a role on the desktop, even considering the new hack to get the chip to work on cheap desktop motherboards. However, one thing is clear - buying an 855GME board at this point would be a very silly idea. Quoting Anand: "there's no reason to even consider an 855GME motherboard from AOpen or DFI; the ASUS solution is cheaper, better performing and is even a much more stable overclocker."

Of course, we still have the prices on these motherboards for your viewing enjoyment.