Price Guides April 2004: CPU and Motherboards

Intel Motherboards

As you might expect, Intel continues to provide the best available chipsets for any system using their processors. The 875P is certainly no exception to this rule. In this respect, DFI takes another top pick, this time for the Intel platform, with their DFI 875P LanParty Pro. Our own Evan Lieb took a look at this board a while back and did not appear the least bit dissatisfied with the performance, value, or package involved with this product. DFI includes their standard UV-reactive board design along with a HighPoint IDE RAID controller, onboard Intel GB LAN, C-Media audio, their FrontX front panel connection system and even a PC Transpo carrying harness and they do for less than $165. Coupled with the P4 2.8C recommended earlier, you can have yourself a great gaming/performance rig without having to break the bank and while still allowing room to do some decent overclocking and tweaking if that is your cup of tea.

Like with AMD motherboards, the question everyone is asking is whether or not to wait for the June 21st release of Socket 775. In our opinion, the answer is a little more clearcut; almost certainly not. i875P performance is very good right now, DDR1 memory has never performed better (although it has been priced cheaper), and again NV40/R420 will still both be AGP. The largest feature of i915P is the PCI-Express interfaces, but we probably still wont need them for at least another yet.