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 all of the recent hoopla surrounding Intel and NVIDIA as of late, today's announcement may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you. To say that there has been some tension between Intel and NVIDIA lately would certainly be putting it mildly. But the fact of the matter is, for now at least, the two companies share a somewhat symbiotic...
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Stop us if you've heard this one before: In this article we will be looking at the latest high-end desktop chipset from Intel, featuring support for DDR2 and DDR3 memory, support for 45nm dual- and quad-core processors, and PCI Express 2.0 connectivity with 16 lanes devoted to each PEG slot and compatibility with ATI's CrossFire...
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Gigabyte is typically one of the most loyal Intel partners, when it comes to chipsets. While they don’t solely produce Intel motherboards, when Intel does release a new chipset, Gigabyte is almost always there to produce several products on any given chipset. Most often, we’ll see low-end, mid-range, and high-end products, that are usually...
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If you've been on top of the PC scene for any length of time, you probably know that whether by choice or necessity, AMD has taken a different tact as of late. Whereas the company was all about bigger, faster, and better during the Athlon's heyday, AMD is now more about touting the performance per dollar and value of their products. ...
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At first glance, Intel's technical documentation for the new P45 / G45 Express series chipsets, you'll note looks alarmingly similar to the previous generation P35 / G35 Express series that this new lineup of chipsets is meant to replace. As the P35 series was a rather successful architecture, this immediately...
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Today at Computex, Intel has officially launched their updated lineup of x45-series chipsets, which will likely be the last major mainstream chipset launch from Intel on the Core 2 platform as we know it today. The names and specifications of these products have been rumored and reported on for the past few months, although today everything...
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As many of you are no doubt aware, Intel is planning to officially release a new mainstream chipset in a few weeks, the P45. From a feature standpoint, the new P45 is somewhat similar to last year's P35. The P45, however, will have official support for PCI Express 2.0, with a more flexible lane configuration for multi-GPU...
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Enthusiasts love high-end hardware, and when it comes to Intel chipsets, that means the X48 and X38 Express platforms. The 910GL Express sits at the polar opposite of the company’s lineup, shoring up sales of entry-level systems where price is the principal consideration. In between, you have a massive list of discrete and integrated chipsets...
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It is hard to believe that it has been almost two full years since NVIDIA released a new flagship chipset for the AMD platform. Since the nForce 590i SLI's official release in May of 2006, NVIDIA has introduced a handful of mid-range and more affordable chipsets for the AMD-platform, but the 590i SLI was it at the high-end, despite AMD's...
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As enthusiasts, we aren't too fond of the idea of running a PC with integrated video. Like many of you, we prefer a discreet video card for the performance benefits, even if it has to be an entry-level solution. Despite that fact, though, most of the monitors in homes and offices across the world are connected to IGPs, and not to...
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AMD made it very clear in our sneak peek at the 780G integrated chipset and Athlon X2 4850e processor that its platform aspirations were coming to pass. Not only did the company introduce a complementary hardware ecosystem, complete with processor, chipset, and graphics solution, but it succeeded in trumping the best effort of its principal...
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DDR3 is the future of desktop PC memory in the near term, no question about it. Nonetheless, the transition to the next level of memory technology will be a gradual one, much like we saw when we advanced from DDR to DDR2. With higher latencies and higher price tags, the argument for migrating to DDR3 in its current state...
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Way back in late 2006, NVIDIA simultaneously unveiled a new flagship GPU and desktop chipset that became the foundation of what NVIDIA was calling the "ultimate gaming platform". At the time, the combination of a pair of GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards and an nForce 680i SLI-based motherboard was clearly the most powerful hardware combo...
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When ASUS unveiled their Republic of Gamers (ROG) series of products, they stated their mission clearly: "deliver the most innovative and best performing PC solutions to enhance the usage experience for power users". There's a lot in that statement to live up to, but ASUS was confident in their abilities. Over the years that we...
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We generally don’t use integrated graphics. You might not use integrated graphics. But there are more motherboards with integrated graphics sold than discrete cards, according to data published last year by Jon Peddie Research. That means you probably have friends and family buying systems with built-in graphics engines. Guess what happens...
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Intel started slowly leaking information about an ultra high-end enthusiast platform dubbed Skulltrail at right about the same time that AMD’s now defunct QuadFX platform was set to be released. Over time we learned that Skulltrail, like QuadFX, would be a dual-socket platform that could accommodate a pair of Intel’s fastest quad-core...
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In mid-Q4 2007, AMD released their 790FX, 790X and 770 chipsets, the final pieces required to complete their Spider platform. As the backbone of the new platform, the 700 series chipsets were designed with new feature sets to take full advantage of the Phenom processor's capabilities. With up to 42 PCI Express lanes,...
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NVIDIA is the sort of company that can and will capitalize on opportunities quickly, whether it be market or product related, or something as simple as logistics. As such, in traditional fashion, with the huge insurgence of press and media swooping down on the never-ending sensory overload that is the city of Las Vegas and the CES show,...
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The nForce 680i SLI has been at the top of NVIDIA’s chipset product stack for well over a year now, which seems like an eternity in this day and age of accelerated product cycles. Although still a top-notch performer, and arguably the best choice for gamers looking to put together a system with multiple GPUs, the nForce 680i SLI is getting...
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In preparation for the impending arrival of Intel’s more affordable 45nm quad-core Yorkfield and dual-core Wolfdale processors, motherboard manufacturers have been readying a slew of new products to properly support the CPUs. Many of these motherboard products are based on Intel’s recent chipset offerings, including the X38 and brand...
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Prior to holding its Financial Analyst Day in New York City, AMD showed off some new CrossFire-related technology to a few select members of the press. What we saw was AMD’s Hybrid CrossFire and its associated hardware, which marries next-generation integrated graphics processors (IGP) and entry-level discreet graphics cards for increased...
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Not too far back, there was a time when it was inconceivable that a motherboard had anything other than a green or mustard colored PCB that had a few sockets for the CPU and DIMMs, maybe a hard drive connector or two, and a floppy drive connection. Keyboards and mice were typically PS/2 based, although a COM port sufficed...
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