PC Motherboard And Chipset Reviews And News
There's nobody quite like Mom and when it comes to performance desktop computers or business class workhorse machines, motherboards are always what bring the computing family together. Motherboards house all PC components from the processor, to memory and storage. Here you'll find our coverage on big motherboard brands and products from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, ASRock and many more, along with the chipsets from AMD and Intel that power the PC Master Race.
With the Dual-Core processor push in full effect, prospective upgraders now have a whole new line of products to consider before making a purchase. From the Intel side you have the Intel Pentium D series, which offers two non-HyperThreaded cores in a single package and the Pentium Extreme Edition with its dual-HyperThreaded cores. ...
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When Intel released their previous line of chipsets, namely the i915 and 925X, they got a luke warm reception at best. Performance gains over of the 865/875 platform were minimal, and there weren't many upgrade options available at the time of launch. On top of that, users were faced with the unenviable task of purchasing a new CPU,...
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With the advent of the mini-PC, a completely new industry has been born. Well, maybe it isn't so new anymore, but what started out almost as a novelty has matured into a major craze in the enthusiast market. Today's mini-PCs come in a broad range of flavors with a wide variety of features. Sitting high atop the list of unique...
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In recent months, the race between the two major industry playersto bring dual-core processing to the masses has heated up. On April 4th, Intel delivered its first dual-core Pentium offering in the form of the Intel Pentium Extreme Edition 840. AMD was soon to follow, on May 9th, releasing its dual-core Athlon 64 X2 4800+. ...
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Over the past several years, NVIDIA has not only made a name for themselves in the Desktop Motherboard Chipset business but they have also cultivated a profitable and highly successful business unit in this area as well, commanding approximately 48% market share in the AMD Athlon 64 based market segment. With design wins at virtually...
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When Intel released the i925XE chipset, it took their existing line of top-tier motherboards to the next level, by providing additional support for CPUs running on a 1066MHz bus. The current list of CPUs that run at this speed is, however, quite short. Combine this fact with the imminent release of Intel's dual-core processors and...
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Once the dominant player for chipsets compatible with AMD's Athlon, VIA has fallen out of favor lately, it seems. The company introduced its K8T890 chipset with PCI Express support way back in November of last year. Yet, we've heard very little about retail products centering on the platform until recently. The PT-series, destined for...
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Hot on the heals of the official announcement of Intel's new dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processor, we have more news for those interested in Intel platform solutions. Today, NVIDIA is finally taking the wraps off of their nForce chipset for the Intel platform, a chipset now known as the nForce 4 SLI Intel Edition. For months there...
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Today, we're bringing you a Dual-Core Pentium quick take, on short notice from the folks at Intel. With only a few hours of testing at our disposal, we're attempting to make time with some level of meaningful analysis for you and hit Intel's NDA embargo lift time this morning. Would we have liked to spend more quality lab time on such...
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Every so often a new technology, or a new piece of hardware, comes along that polarizes the PC enthusiast community. One such product is the recently released NVIDIA nForce 4 SLI chipset. The nForce 4 SLI chipset is the preferred platform for NVIDIA's Scalable Link Interface technology, that gives users the ability to use a pair of GeForce...
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Over the years, Abit has cultivated a well deserved reputation for building some of the most overclockable, and feature rich motherboards available. So, anytime a new core-logic chipset is released, knowledgeable enthusiasts inevitably wonder what Abit has in store. Abit tends to incorporate features that make their motherboards...
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Until Intel's next-generation chipsets arrive, with support for upcoming multi-core processors, the 925X and 925XE will remain the flagship chipsets for LGA775 based Pentium 4 processors. The 925X and XE are very similar, as Dave pointed out in his introduction to the P4 EE 3.46GHz last October. When we compare the 925X and 925XE,...
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Refinements and performance optimizations in PC motherboard designs often track chipset re-spins and tweaks, as a new base architecture matures. Intel is absolutely famous (or shall we say infamous) for releasing a new chipset only to set sail with a re-spin or further characterization of the product, just a few months later. ...
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VIA is perhaps most notable for its contributions as a supplier of chipsets for AMD's Athlon XP/64 processor families. The company's work with Intel's offerings has ranged, over time, from clandestine manufacturing of unlicensed core logic (in Intel's eyes, at least) to the manufacture of a respectably leading edge product in the form...
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A few months ago, we took a look at a sampling of Athlon 64 Socket 939 motherboards, and ended up giving an Editor's Choice award to the NVIDIA nForce 3 Ultra based MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum. At the time, the K8N Neo2 Platinum struck the best balance between features, performance, overclockability, and price. Another motherboard tested...
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Over the past year, DFI has made a name for itself with a crowd that is traditionally very hard to please. A company that once built parts strictly for the OEM / white box folks, is now catering to the enthusiast and overclocking communities with a bold, feature laden line of motherboards. DFI's "LANPARTY" products build...
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As Intel's Alderwood and Grantsdale chipsets have brought a whole new platform of technology to the P4, OEMs are now in full swing, bringing their own flavors to the mix. With support for Intel's new LGA775 processors, DDR and DDR2 and PCI-Express, the playing field has certainly changed. Granted, while upgrading will require a...
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There's a certain allure in being able to make the claim that you can double the performance of anything. All too often, overzealous marketing campaigns in the high-tech field have made a "theoretical" claim of this sort, all the while falling well short in real-world performance metrics. The PC graphics industry has had its...
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In recent months, Intel's i915G/P and i925X chipsets have taken center stage as the premier chipsets for the Intel P4 desktop platform. With the new "Grantsdale" and "Alderwood" chipsets came the next major shift in computer technology. The latest designs employ the newest Pentium 4...
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Using the sheer number of "NVIDIA vs. ATi" articles posted on-line or published in every popular computer magazine as a gauge, it would be easy to surmise that these two rivals battled each other for dominance in the desktop 3D graphics space alone. Numerous head-to-head comparisons between NVIDIA's GeForce 6 series and ATi's...
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NVIDIA's ride as a chipset designer and manufacturer has been tumultuous in spots without question. The first two iterations of its nForce product family were immensely popular because they addressed weaknesses that plagued other chipsets, such as memory and integrated graphics performance. However, they are correspondingly more expensive...
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Although AMD's socket 939 platform has moved into the mainstream with the recent release of 939-pin Athlon 64 3000+ and 3200+ CPUs, products based on the older socket 754 platform are still in demand. While the new socket 939 processors have been met with much fanfare (and relatively high price tags), the older socket 754 Athlon...
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