Price Guide, January 2006: Motherboards
by Haider Farhan on January 1, 2006 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Introduction
Welcome to the latest edition of our motherboard price guide, where you can always depend on us to find you the best deals on the products you're interested in purchasing. We are still awaiting the new i975X based motherboards to hit the retail market, which by the way, we are expecting to occur within the coming week.
We have noticed that much of the computer hardware market has been at quite a standstill. And we're hoping that possibly the start of the New Year will get the ball rolling once again.
And as always, do not forget to drop a quick search in our legendary RTPE, http://labs.anandtech.com, for your up-to-the-minute pricing needs. There are many ways you can search for the products you are looking for, so be sure to fully explore our RTPE as we can guarantee it won't be a waste of time.
Before we get into our guide, we would like to wish all our astute readers a Happy New Year with all the health and happiness.
Athlon 64 - Socket 939
Most of the NForce 4 SLi boards have been fairly steady with their prices over the course of the last month. You can see in the pricing chart that a few have gone up in price, while not a single one has seen a decrease. The price increases are not what we would call significant, just a miniscule increase. A decent mid-range motherboard we suggest you look into is the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI [RTPE: MS-7100-020] on sale for just under $190.
Two other great boards we would suggest are the ASUS A8N-SLI [RTPE: A8N-SLI] going for $125 and the DFI Infinity [RTPE: Infinity] for $120. If you're looking for a SLi board and are trying to stick to a really tight budget, then you can't forget about the Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI [RTPE: GA-K8N-SLI] going for a mere $94.
As with the SLi board, the NF4 Ultra boards are basically in the same boat. A few boards have seen some insignificant price increases, but other than that, most of which have remained roughly the same. A couple of boards we would recommend for the budget minded folks are the DFI nForce4 Ultra Infinity [RTPE: DFI Infinity] for $98 and the EPoX EP-9NPA+Ultra [RTPE: EP-9NPA+Ultra] for about $105 shipped.
Another great board we suggest is the MSI nForce4 Ultra K8N Neo4 Platinum [RTPE: MS-7125-010] on sale for about $124.
Even though this time around the VIA K8T890 chipset wasn't as great of a hit as the nForce 4 chipset, the VIA is still competitively price. You can see the Gigabyte K8T890 (939) GA-K8VT890-9 [RTPE: GA-K8VT890-9] going for $87. The Abit K8T890 (939) AX8 [RTPE: AX8] is also going for a $80 after a $30 mail-in rebate (MIR). We have yet to see the new K8T900 boards hit the retail market, which was recently announced by VIA.
To be able to fully support either an AGP or PCIe card, you would want the Asrock M1695 939Dual-SATA2 [RTPE: 939Dual-SATA2] which is on sale for $73 shipped.
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Mermaidman - Monday, January 2, 2006 - link
With all the rumors of Abit's impending demise, should buyers avoid them?kobymu - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
no love for SiSPrinceGaz - Monday, January 2, 2006 - link
Yeah, they found room for the few VIA and ULi AMD boards, but as usual SiS were ignored. Whilst I wouldn't recommend getting one myself, they should at least be included in a price guide.plonk420 - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
where's the followup to the Asus 6150 mobo? i'm dying to get either it or the MSI 6150 once i see how it fares decoding MPEG2 or preferrably WMV9 720p or 1080p (even tho i only have a 480p dlp pj >_>)stability99 - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
Thanks Anandtech Team, but can you classify quality to price in Intel and AMD next time? Some of us need the best bang of buck, but some need to have info about best quality over the price. Thanks again.MadAd - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
I wonder if"we would suggest is you wait out until we can get some decent comparative tests/benchmarks before you splurge for one of these new boards"
means -we have tested one and its crap but the NDA doesnt let us tell you yet
:D :D
PrinceGaz - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
...are listed twice, once on page 1 and again on page 4 (the only difference being an additional board on the page 1 list). I guess Haider must have had a very merry New Year :)Brian23 - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
Happy 2006!tjpark1111 - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
wow i really must have no life typing this, but happy new year guys!(and gals)Brian23 - Sunday, January 1, 2006 - link
That's not true. The people at Anandtech have less of a life because they posted this article right at the new year. I guess since I got the first first-post of 2006, that means I have the least of a life. sux to be me.