Introduction

Welcome to our latest price guide, covering all of the recent happenings in the motherboard marketplace. Many changes have occurred since the launch of AMD's AM2 platform, including the introduction of the new nForce 5xx. We expect the nForce 5xx chipsets to only be used for AM2 motherboards, but theoretically they could be used for the Socket 939 platform as well. The reverse is also true, of course, and there are already a few nForce4 AM2 boards on the market.

Now that AMD finally has a unified platform, you will be able to buy "one motherboard to rule them all." AM2 boards support everything from the lowly Sempron 64s, through the mid-range Athlon 64s, and up to the high-end dual core Athlon X2 and FX processors. We wouldn't recommend a $200+ motherboard to run a $65 Sempron in most cases, but if you are thinking about getting the platform now and upgrading CPUs once X2 prices drop, it's certainly an option.

While our initial AM2 overview article didn't show a significant increase in performance with the AM2 platform despite the increased RAM speed, it's good to see AMD now has a unified platform for all of its processors just as with the Socket A days. The biggest change for AM2 is the support of DDR2, something Intel did two years ago with the introduction of the 915 and 925X chipsets. Of course, AMD has the benefit of seeing much lower DDR2 prices than Intel saw when they transitioned, and as we'll see in this price guide, prices on the new AM2 motherboards are very competitive, so anyone looking to buy a new processor, RAM, and motherboard really shouldn't have any qualms about going with an AM2 setup rather than the older Socket 939 boards.

There are many motherboards that are covered in this price guide and we have tried to make it as readable as possible. As always, we use our Real-Time Pricing Engine for all prices. The price tables are continuously updated, so while we will be looking at a snapshot of the current market prices you may find that the article text becomes outdated; feel free to do your own research using the RTPE before making a purchase decision. Our RTPE includes pricing information on hard drives, motherboards, processors, and video cards, and we cover these sectors with our Price Guides. However, it also covers LCD monitors, sound cards, and RAM for both laptops and desktops. As always, send us your comments, suggestions and concerns either via e-mail or use the comment section below.

With the addition of a completely new platform, we've got a lot of motherboard options to cover. We will start this week's Price Guide with AMD's AM2 motherboards before working our way through the other AMD options. We will finish up with the Intel line-up, including a look at socket 775 boards and some thoughts on Core 2 Duo support.



AMD AM2

We'll start at the top of the AM2 motherboards with the nForce 590 SLI offerings. These are all premium motherboards that are essentially "everything plus the kitchen sink" designs. There are still differences among them, of course, and we have already reviewed several nForce 590 boards.


At the moment, we're only displaying three AM2 motherboards featuring the nForce 590 SLI chipset. All of the boards are going for roughly the same price. Since the recent release of the AM2 platform a couple weeks ago, there has already been a decent price decrease of about $30 with both the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe [RTPE: M2N32-SLI Deluxe] and the ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless [RTPE: M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless]. The wireless version, as you can guess, features onboard wireless networking capabilities. Of the 590 boards we've already reviewed, only the Foxconn [RTPE: C51XEM2AA] is currently in stock and selling for $219. This is without doubt the best motherboard we've ever reviewed from Foxconn, and FireWire aficionados will appreciate the inclusion of the faster 1394B Port.


If the nForce 590 SLI prices are too much, you also have the option of going with a motherboard featuring the nForce 570 SLI chipset. As with the nForce 590 SLI based boards, we are only currently tracking three boards (Asus, Abit and MSI) -- all of which are going for roughly $130-$150. We'll have more 570 SLI reviews in the future, but so far we found that the MSI K9N SLI Platinum [RTPE: K9N SLI Platinum] ($140) was very competitive with the more expensive 590 boards in overall performance, while it lacked a few of their higher end features. The cheapest available board in this group is currently from Abit; the KN9 SLI [RTPE: KN9 SLI] is going for $133 shipped.


Dropping support for SLI, we have the nForce 570 Ultra based boards which are going for about $105-$115. We've only got two such offerings at present, which isn't too surprising considering most people will either want to save a bit more money and go with something from the next group, or else they'll want to spend a bit more money and get SLI support. MSI's offering, the 570 Ultra K9N Platinum [RTPE:K9N Platinum] ($119), features 4 DIMMs with support of up to DDR 800 and up to 8GB of RAM. It also features 6 SATA 3.0Gbps, RAID 0 or 1, 0+1, 5, two PCI-E X16 slots, Dual GB Ethernet ports, and Realtek ALC883 7.1 CH HD audio. The other 570 Ultra option is just as compelling, the ASUS 570 Ultra M2N-E [RTPE: M2N-E] ($105) offers similar features to the MSI board, though at present Newegg is the only vendor we currently show as stocking this motherboard. The ASUS board has been on the market for less than a week, so we expect availability to improve shortly. Worth noting is that both the MSI and ASUS 570 Ultra motherboards feature entirely passive cooling -- no more noisy/failed chipset fans.


Rounding out the nForce 500 AM2 motherboard offerings, we have the nForce 550 motherboards. Once again, we're only currently pulling up two nForce 550 based motherboards. These two boards are from Biostar [RTPE: TForce 550] and MSI [RTPE: K9N Neo-F] and are going for about $87 each. We hope to have a review of the TForce 550 in the near future, and we'll find out just how much performance you can wring out of an $87 motherboard.



More AM2 Motherboards

While NVIDIA made a point of launching the new nForce 500 series chipsets along with AMD's AM2 processors, there are quite a few manufacturers using previously released chipsets that still support AM2. You give up features in some cases, but given their lower prices, some of these boards definitely represent attractive solutions for buyers interested in Sempron CPUs.


At the moment, we're seeing three nForce motherboards with nForce 430/61x0 integrated graphics. Only one of these boards uses the faster nForce 430/6150 chipset combination, the Asus M2NPV-VM [RTPE: M2NPV-VM] which is currently going for $93. This is a micro ATX motherboard, but along with the integrated graphics it also supports four DDR2 DIMMs, four SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, two IDE ports (up to four devices), and it even includes FireWire 1394A. It also includes both DVI and VGA output ports, so if you're looking for something for a new HTPC configuration, this is definitely an interesting option.

Talking about faster performance with integrated graphics often seems a bit silly -- do you want "slow" or "slower" 3D performance? We've got two motherboards that have opted for the 6100 chipset, both from Gigabyte. The Gigabyte GA-M55plus-S3G [RTPE: GA-M55plus-S3G] is on sale for about $94 shipped, while the Gigabyte GA-M51GM-S2G [RTPE: GA-M51GM-S2G] is going for about $85 shipped. Comparing these two motherboards, you'll find that the S2G is a micro ATX board while the S3G is a full-size ATX board. The larger size means the S3G has more expansion ports, so it includes two PCI-E X1 and 4 PCI slots versus one PCI-E X1 and two PCI slots on the S2G. Note that neither Gigabyte board offers DVI output and both also include FireWire support.


Dropping from the nForce 430 chipset to the nForce 410, we have the recently released Biostar TForce 6100 AM2 [RTPE: TForce 6100 AM2] which is on sale for about $80. As with all AM2 motherboards, you still get full support of the high-end Athlon X2 processors and 2GHz HyperTransport technology. This board also features four DDR2 800 memory slots with support for up to 4GB of memory total, a single PCI-E X16 slot, two SATA 3.0Gbps ports, and two IDE ports (four devices). It also drops support for Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire, and high definition audio. In short, it's nothing fancy, but for a low-end AM2 board with onboard graphics it's a decent deal.


While these boards aren't currently showing up in our pricing engine (that will hopefully be corrected in the near future), Newegg at least is selling two nForce4 based AM2 motherboards. One is from Biostar, the TForce4 AM2, which is a full-size ATX board with four SATA ports, two IDE ports, and a price that's under $80. If you're after an extreme budget AM2 motherboard, ECS makes the nForce4M-A with similar features, only the price is under $70.



Athlon 64 - Socket 939

Moving on to socket 939, it is nearly impossible to highlight all of the excellent boards that are available here, so if we don't happen to mention your particular favorite board, please don't hold it against us. Why should you get a socket 939 motherboard now that AM2 launched? Well, performance isn't necessarily any better on the new platform, and you might be able to get better prices on socket 939 parts now. You might also already have DDR memory that you wish to keep, or perhaps you're just replacing an older 939 motherboard. While AMD is content to phase out the socket 939 platform as quickly as possible, if you already have most of the necessary parts and you're not worried about future processor upgrades, socket 939 is still definitely viable.


The 939 SLI motherboards seem to be quite stagnant in the way of price changes; only a few dollars here and a few dollars there, but nothing very significant. For the serious overclockers out there who are looking to push their hardware to the extreme, the DFI nForce4 SLI LanParty SLI-DR [RTPE: LanParty SLI-DR] is still a good choice, even though it does come with a hefty price tag of $161. The ASUS A8N-SLI Premium [RTPE: A8N-SLI Premium] is another decent option, priced at $156. Although the overclocking potential of this board is mediocre, it is one of the many feature-filled boards, including: SATA 3.0Gbps, integrated dual Gigabit LAN, 8-channel audio with the Realtek ALC850 chipset, up to 10 USB 2.0 ports, IEEE 1394, a multi-language BIOS and a Sony-Philips Digital Interface (S/PDIF-out) jack.

Of course if you don't find it necessary to purchase a very high-end motherboard for your specific application, there are plenty of cheaper alternatives available for you to choose from. You can easily find a socket 939 SLI motherboard for under $100. The Abit nForce4 SLI AN8 SLI [RTPE: AN8 SLI] and the Biostar nForce4 SLI N4SLI-A9 [RTPE: N4SLI-A9] are just a couple examples, going for $94 and $83 respectively.


Arguably one of the best overclocking and gaming boards available today, the ASUS nForce4 SLI X16 A8N32-SLI Deluxe [RTPE: A8N32-SLI Deluxe] is still held in high regard, and the price has dropped down to about $180. Abit and MSI also offer nForce4 SLI X16 boards for socket 939, and the MSI K8N Diamond Plus [RTPE: K8N Diamond Plus] is a decent option as well. Check out our review for more detailed information about this specific motherboard.


We're not seeing any significant price changes in the nForce 4 Ultra line-up, but we have noticed that the number of 939 motherboards has decreased,. There are still quite a few being sold, however, especially some of the more popular models. The DFI nForce4 Ultra LanParty UT Ultra-D [RTPE: LanParty UT Ultra-D] has always been a favorite and can be found for $120. The MSI nForce4 Ultra K8N Neo4 Platinum [RTPE: K8N Neo4 Platinum] ($105) is another decent option.


For an inexpensive socket 939 alternative, these nForce4 4X boards are fairly decent, although do plan on staying at the very low end of the price range as you can quickly advance into the nForce 4 Ultra price range, thus defeating the whole purpose of going with a less expensive chipset. If you're considering one of these motherboards, we would recommend going with the least expensive offering, assuming you are on a pretty tight budget. The ECS nForce4 4X NFORCE4-A939 [RTPE: NFORCE4-A939] is going for about $67. Keep in mind that an nForce4 Ultra based board can be had for about $90, while an SLI board can be had for about $80.



More AMD Motherboards

We're still not done with AMD motherboard offerings, which shouldn't come as much of a surprise as there are currently three shipping platforms for AMD processors. Let's take a look at some of the ATI chipset offerings for socket 939.


The Xpress 3200 CrossFire chipset and motherboards were launched fairly recently. Many manufacturers chose to skip socket 939 for the RD580 chipset, but unfortunately socket AM2 RD580 motherboards are still unavailable. Our RTPE is only picking up four Xpress 3200 boards, and we've reviewed the DFI CFX3200-DR as well as the ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe. Although this is a rather expensive motherboard, you are getting a top-of-the-line, fully featured product. If you prefer ATI's CrossFire implementation over NVIDIA's SLI offerings and you don't want to wait for AM2 CrossFire boards to launch (or Intel's Core 2 Duo 975X boards with CrossFire support), you might pick up one of these motherboards.


If you're in the market for a CrossFire board and you don't want to spend money on one of the RD580 versions, there are a number of motherboards available to choose from, ranging from well under $100 to well over $100. At the top of the niche, you have the DFI Xpress 200 CrossFire LanParty UT RDX200 CF-DR [RTPE: LanParty UT RDX200 CF-DR] going for about $141. Looking at the bottom of the spectrum, you have the MSI Xpress 200 CrossFire RD480 Neo2-FI [RTPE: RD480 Neo2-FI] priced at an even $70 and also the ASUS Xpress 200 CrossFire (939) A8R-MVP [RTPE: A8R-MVP] on sale for approximately $100. We would stick with the lower-priced offerings here, as once you get above $130 you can get the superior RD580 chipset.


These Xpress 200 based motherboards aren't marketed toward gamers, although they do offer acceptable performance for users not needing or wanting any high-end graphic capabilities an add-on card would offer. About midway in the pricing scheme, the MSI Xpress 200 RS482M4-ILD [RTPE: RS482M4-ILD] is fairly priced at $75 for its offerings.


Making our way back to the NVIDIA based boards, here we are at the 61x0 lineup. You will find these boards are priced about the same, if not slightly cheaper than the ATI Xpress 200 boards. The NVIDIA 61x0 motherboards are slightly faster than their ATI counterparts in many benchmarks. Then again, comparing gaming benchmarks for these integrated graphics motherboards doesn't make much sense as both are underpowered compared to just about any discrete graphics card. You can see throughout the 61x0 boards that there hasn't been much in the way of price changes. Looking at the price charts for these motherboards, prices have been generally stagnant since launch, so we don't expect them to drop much further between now and when they disappear from the face of the market. If you need one of these boards, you might as well just buy it now.


Wrapping up the AMD platforms with the socket 754 motherboards, you can see these boards have dramatically decreased in number over the course of time. We really see no reason to go with a socket 754 platform now-a-days. Your single-core socket 939 CPUs are priced at about the same as the socket 754 processors. We suggest completely overlooking these motherboards and jumping right along with a socket 939 or AM2 coupled with a single-core 939 processor for your low-end setups.


The Xpress 200 socket 754 boards have also decreased in number. We're only displaying one motherboard from MSI - the Xpress 200 (754) RS482M-IL [RTPE: RS482M-IL] going for about $70. Unless you already have the CPU and memory and you're just looking for a replacement motherboard, you should look at some of the previously mentioned options.

If your heart is still set on socket 754, we hate to disappoint you but this will be the last Motherboard Price Guide where we bother looking at these offerings. We don't expect any new socket 754 motherboards to launch, so what we have said here and in the past will have to suffice. Of course, the price engine will continue to track these motherboards until supply dries up, so if you're ever in the market for a socket 754 motherboard you can still search them out.



Intel Motherboards

After all of the AMD coverage, we finally come to the Intel platforms. The big problem with Intel platforms is that the Core 2 Duo launch is right around the corner, and all of the enthusiasts know it. If you need a replacement motherboard, however, there's no reason to wait. One big question that remains: which socket 775 motherboards will officially support Core 2 Duo once it becomes available? We're hoping to provide some answers to that question in the near future, but for now we would advise caution. All that should really be necessary is a BIOS update and proper VRM support, but things are still a bit murky in terms of seeing the future and figuring out which motherboards are guaranteed to run Conroe.


Starting at the top of Intel's chipset offerings, we have the i975X offerings and the i955X boards they replaced. The i975X motherboards are about at the same price point that the i955X formerly occupied, though we are seeing a couple 955X motherboards that continue to carry nearly the same price. We highly suggest you skip over the 955X based boards and head on over to the 975X chipset, and if you're willing to take a gamble there's at least a chance that the 975X boards will support Core 2 Duo. The ASUS 975X P5WD2-E Premium [RTPE: P5WD2-E Premium] is going for about $240 shipped, and if there's one company out there that can pull off a BIOS update in order to support Intel's next-generation processors, we would have to say it's ASUS. Still, there's no guarantee yet.


The i945P based motherboards are excellent performers for the budget minded folks. We recommend staying within the lower-end of the spectrum because as you slowly increase into the higher-end models, you gradually get closer to the i975X motherboards which offer more performance for your money. 975X motherboards also offer support for dual video cards and ATI's CrossFire technology, so for high-end ATI gaming performance on an Intel platform they are presently the only choice.


The major difference between 945P and 945G is that the latter includes Intel's GMA950 integrated graphics. While the Intel solution is outperformed by both the ATI and NVIDIA IGP solutions, we feel we can still recommend some of these motherboards for the users who do not need any special graphics capabilities. Any one of the motherboards found in the above chart should prove to be sufficient for basic office applications and the like. Going with a motherboard with integrated graphics can save builders the cost of having to purchase an add-on card that is unnecessary for many basic applications. If you hope to run Windows Vista in the future, however, we would strongly recommend that you at least get a motherboard that has a PCI-E X16 slot.



More Intel Motherboards

Intel isn't the only chipset provider when it comes to socket 775 motherboards. The second-biggest chipset provider by far is NVIDIA, and the performance offered is competitive with the best that Intel can provide. Can any of these motherboards support Core 2 Duo? Unofficially, we're almost certain they can, but it's going to be the official standpoint that really matters.


Looking at the prices of these nForce 4 SLI motherboards for the socket 775 platform, once again we find that things have been pretty static of late, but there were some pretty significant changes if you look back a bit further. Considering how high the prices of these boards used to be, many are quite a bargain these days. The ASUS nForce4 SLI (775) P5ND2-SLI [RTPE: P5ND2-SLI] used to cost around $130 a couple months back, but the price has been cut cut to $94 shipped. There are a few others that can be found for well under $100 as well.


We expected to see quite a few nForce 4 Ultra boards for the Intel socket 775 lineup. Unfortunately, we're still only seeing a single board, the Biostar TForce4U-775 [RTPE: TForce4U-775] going for about $85. We reviewed this motherboard a while back, and found it to be a reasonable budget offering for socket 775. It overclocks decently, performs well in games, and it competes with the i975X motherboards and surpasses the i945P based motherboards in most performance tests.


We'll finish up with some of the alternative chipset offerings. If you're looking for a really inexpensive socket 775 motherboard, just remember the old adage: "you get what you pay for." If you are dead set on building a budget computer using a budget motherboard, don't be surprised when you end up with budget performance and budget features. Considering how critical the motherboard is in terms of overall system performance and stability, most of us at AnandTech prefer to spend more on motherboards -- for peace of mind if nothing else.

That brings this week's price guide to a close. We'll be back again next weekend with an updated at the latest video card happenings.