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Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/1749
Price Guides August 2005: Motherboards
by Kristopher Kubicki and Howard Johnson on August 6, 2005 1:32 PM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Welcome to another edition of our price guides. There are lots of Mail in Rebates (MIRs) this week, and while they do not show up on our tables embedded inside the Price Guides, they do show up on the price engine itself. Check out RTPE at labs.anandtech.com and see if you can spot some rebates yourself.
There were some very exciting changes in merchant pricing this week. MSI dominated the motherboard prices left and right - certainly a swift change from our usual recommendation of DFI and ASUS. MWave has been partially responsible for the new trend with some very good pricing on just about everything. ChiefValue and NewEgg are also doing their share of mopping up.
There have been relatively few product launches since our last guide. AMD's Athlon 64 X2 3800+ launched last week and for the first time in many years AMD managed to not paper-launch a processor! You can check out the new Manchester processor here - which is currently running around $394 shipped. AMD's new chip does a number on Intel's domination of the low end dual core prices and we have an analysis of the two chip prices near the Intel section of this guide. And no... no Crossfire boards this week.
Athlon 64 Socket 939
Our bot has managed to pick up another dozen or so nForce4 products, and prices have adjusted accordingly to the new competition. Last time we looked at motherboards VIA's K8T890 series had just began to fill retail store shelves, and since then we have picked up a few more motherboards as well. As we have explained in the past, the choice to buy a new motherboard these days should be very cut and dry in favor of PCIe options. GeForce 7800GTX showed up a few weeks ago, and aside from being a spectacular card, it's also spectacularly limited to PCIe right now (and probably will be for several more weeks to come). The 7800GTX has a little brother, 7800GT, which will also launch and ship next week. Our sources indicate there will be copious amounts of PCIe 7800GT cards first, and AGP versions will follow much later. Like with other recent video card launches, the AGP cards will also probably carry a premium at first. So you could buy an older nForce3 or K8T800 AGP motherboard and stick with the more expensive AGP options, or you could follow our advice and grab a Socket 939 PCIe motherboard.
Since our last guide, SLI motherboards have dropped in price quite substantially. A particular favorite of ours, the MSI K8N Neo4 SLI [RTPE: MS-7100-030], dropped $20 since our last guide to $125. Other notable motherboards include the MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum SLI [RTPE: MS-7100-020] which won our Editor's Choice award several months ago. A few merchants have a $25 mail-in-rebate on this motherboard - which places the Platinum board only $15 more than the non-Platinum version. The only real difference between these two motherboards is the dual Gigabit Ethernet - so if you don't need that you actually can save some extra cash with the non-Platinum version. If you simply want the cheapest SLI board out there, Biostar's N4SLI-A9 comes in at $114, which is less than several Ultra boards. It's similar to the ASUS in that two slots separate the PCIe X16 slots. We can't vouch for performance, overclocking, or stability at this time, however, so you might be better off spending the extra $12 for the MSI board.
Of course, you can save even more cash by ditching SLI and just going for an nForce4 ultra motherboard instead. MSI's Neo4-F [RTPE: MS-7125-030] is a great board for $86, but you won't get a lot of bells and whistles like the Creative Sound Blaster 7.1 codec. If you have a third party sound card already, it doesn't make sense to pay the extra money for the nForce4 Ultra chipset nor the Creative codec instead. Chaintech continues to set the low price bar for nForce4 Ultra motherboards, and not surprisingly the VNF4 Ultra VE [RTPE: Chaintech VNF4 Ultra VE] hails as our all around socket 939 pick for the 5th month in a row. At $82, you would be real hard pressed to find a better nForce4 Ultra motherboard. Let's take a look at the price trend on this board since it's launch:
Chaintech nForce4 Ultra (939) VNF4 Ultra VE
We shouldn't completely neglect VIA, although with the low nForce4 prices their "value" positioning isn't all that great. K8T890 boards are a lot cheaper than they were six weeks ago, though none of the boards strike us as particularly outstanding. The Gigabyte GA-K8VT90-9 [RTPE: GA-K8VT90-9] leads the pack around $90, but for $8 less you can get a tried and true Chaintech VNF4 Ultra. You could take a bit of a risk and go with the $65 Chaintech MK8T890. Low prices often come with lower quality mosfets, capacitors, etc. so we're a little cautious. Then again, the VNF4 Ultra isn't bad and the VIA chipset is cheaper, so that may account for a lot of the price difference. $210 will get you the Chaintech and Venice 3000+, which isn't too shabby.
If you're planning a new purchase, don't forget to check out our latest AMD roadmap! We have details on AMD's socket upgrade path, including future plans for the M2 socket. As mentioned earlier, we have given less and less attention to AGP motherboards over the last few months; unless you spent a lot of money on a high-end AGP card in the past year, the best bang for your buck is to upgrade to a PCIe card (specifically a 6600GT PCIe or a 7800GT PCIe) then worry about a new processor/mobo. You're not going to do a new Athlon 64 X2 much justice by sticking a Radeon 9600 Pro in an nForce3 motherboard.
However, for those of you who have 6800, X800, or other current generation AGP cards (maybe you got it as a gift?), nForce3 is still clinging to life. Again MSI seems to dominate the prices this week; the Neo2-F [RTPE: MS-7025-020] and the Neo2 Platinum [RTPE: MS-7025-010] took a fairly big drop in price over the last few weeks. The Neo2 Platinum actually has a $25 mail-in-rebate right now, but it's still going to cost you $120 out the door. Unless you really need Firewire, the Neo2-F is actually a much better deal.
More AMD Motherboards
We say this every time put out another price guide, but not everyone seems to believe us just yet. If you're upgrading to Athlon 64, there is no reason for you to buy a Socket 754 motherboard unless you're going low budget; specifically Sempron. Low cost Sempron 754 chips are all the rage these days (and with good reason when compared to Duron chips of yore). You can buy a reasonable nForce4 motherboard, a Sempron chip and a TurboCache video card for under $200; an awesome combo considering SLI motherboards or mid range video cards cost that much alone. Do not buy an Athlon 64 for Socket 754; you're much better off spending the money on a Socket 939 Venice or Winchester chip.
It's interesting to note that Sempron chips for socket 939 actually exist, but at present they're only available in OEM systems. The 3000+ is 128K 1.8GHz and the 3200+ is 256K 1.8 GHz, both Palermo cores. We believe they're also 64-bit enabled Semprons, and when they actually reach the retail market we really lose any reason to recommend buying a socket 754 board. Upgraders might still have a reason to stick with older platforms like AGP and 754, but for new systems you're better off spending more money.
Perhaps the worst rig you could buy right now is a Socket 754 Athlon 64 on nForce3. AGP is a horrible idea for Socket 754 right now because nForce4 boards are generally priced very similar and AGP low end video cards are prohibitively expensive. If you have the money to pair a high end AGP video card with a Socket 754 Athlon 64, then you definitely should be buying nForce4/Socket 939 instead. (If you already own an AGP card and you're looking to upgrade from something like an Athlon XP platform but keep your GPU, we'd probably wait for the ULi AGP/PCIe boards to show up.)
The other category of buyers we mentioned, the low end TurboCache folks, have some pretty awesome options this week. Our favorite board once again reigns as the MSI K8N Neo3-F [RTPE: MS-7135-010]. With AGP and PCIe, you can take your old GeForce Ti4400 with a decent Sempron and come out with an inexpensive (but still powerful enough to play Warcraft) machine. While the AGP slot isn't a true AGP 8X solution, it shouldn't matter much for older GPUs. The PCIe slot gives you the option to upgrade to a much more capable video card in the future, which you can in turn carry over to your next rig since it's PCIe. Or, you can go the other way and stick with a TurboCache card and just load up on memory.
NVIDIA aren't the only Socket 754 PCIe guys anymore; at least not since ATI's RS480 chipset started to show up on Socket 754 with the MSI Xpress 200 RS480M-IL [RTPE: MS-7145-020]. MSI must have had some incentives recently because all of their motherboards are priced better than the other Tier 1 guys. Sapphire's PURE Innovation "Grouper" motherboard (reviewed here) appears to be several weeks away from shipping still, but we will keep our eyes out for that too. Since we are talking about ATI chipsets, we might as well mention Crossfire; but don't get your hopes up too high for that either - we are expecting mid-September at best - and even then we don't know about quantities of Master Cards or motherboards.
Even though we just did a piece on the ULi M1695 chipset, components aren't quite shipping yet. The M1689 motherboards are extremely cheap right now, but to recommend one would go against our original advice to not recommend Socket 754 AGP motherboards. You might save a few bucks buying a ULi motherboard but you're going to pay through the nose to buy any low end AGP video card.
And for those who insist on buying an nForce3 motherboard against our advice, here you go!
Intel Motherboards
Although Intel does not quite have the same rich selection in motherboard manufacturers and products, there are some pitfalls you need to watch out for when buying current generation Intel hardware. Let's look at the cost of two comparable systems with the costs of hardware in August 2005 prices:
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ $394 |
Pentium D 820 $235 |
So technically, Intel has the much cheaper dual system right now. Unfortunately, if you value gaming performance at all, the Intel system is not the way to go. In fact, in Anand's recent benchmarks the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ pretty much swept the Pentium D 830 in every benchmark except office productivity (and even then that was in a synthetic benchmark). If we were to factor the price of the chips above to feature the Pentium D 830 instead of the X2 3800+, the Intel system would still come out ahead in price, but not by much. We still like the Pentium D, particularly for a work machine where you're expected to chug away in Outlook rather than play Doom3, but for the average workstation AMD is looking more and more attractive.
With Intel, the only real choices on a motherboard right now are 955X or 945G/P. The 955X boards are great, but insanely expensive. If you plan to go the way of cheap dual core (the only advantage Intel has right now), you don't want a 955X motherboard. On a mildly related note, ASUS's P5WD2 Premium WiFi-TV is the only motherboard in the last 5 years that managed to jump an extra $50 less than two months after its debut. In fact, 955X motherboards everywhere seem to be drying up and increasing in price. We sure aren't recommending them, so the initial runs must have been very low quantity to dry up by now.
Meanwhile Intel's workhorse chipset, 945P, quietly continues to introduce new and better priced models. Once again MSI has the best prices this week with the exception of a few Intel branded and Gigabyte models. The Gigabyte GA-8I945P-G [RTPE: GA-8I945P-G], MSI Neo-F [RTPE: MS-7176-020] and Intel D945PSNLK [RTPE: D945PSNLK] all cary about the same feature set, but the Gigabyte board saves you an extra $10 over the MSI alternative so we will have to recommend them again this week.
Prices are unfortunately stagnant on the 945P arena. MSI's 945P Platinum [RTPE: MS-7176-010] has a $25 mail-in-rebate, but the only advantage the Platinum board has over the non-Platinum board is the 1394/Firewire support; and you'll still have to pay $153 to get the board out the door. Your money is better spent elsewhere in our opinion.
We said above that gaming performance means you'll really want an Athlon X2 instead of a Pentium D. If you don't care about gaming, there's a good chance you don't care about high performance graphics. The only real difference between the 945P and 945G is the presence or lack of integrated graphics. While the GMA950 graphics aren't particularly fast in 3D applications, business users probably won't care. Most of the cheapest 945G boards carry the Intel name, and there are many micro-ATX designs if that interests you. We'd go with the MSI 945G Neo-F i945G [RTPE: MS-7176-040], though if you want Firewire the Gigabyte 945G GA-8I945G Pro [RTPE: GA-8I945G]is $10 more.
More PCIe Intel
NVIDIA's nForce4 for Intel has generally been too expensive and too insignificant to really pay much attention to. The last few generations of Intel chips have not done a great job of capturing the enthusiast, which is a primary component of AMD's successful processors lately. However, with the dual core race, AMD and Intel are once again on level ground - with the Intel Pentium D series (particularly the Pentium D 820 [RTPE: BX80551PG2800FN]) leading the pack for Intel. Now, a low cost, dual core Intel system makes sense; and if you plan on buying a single GeForce 6600GT or a 7800GT and upgrading to a second one later, SLI makes a lot more sense too. Unfortunately, the missing component in that equation is the motherboard; NVIDIA makes the only SLI capable motherboard for Intel if you disregard Tumwater.
The price for nForce4 Intel motherboards is quite terrible. Biostar leads the pack as far as price goes, and there was a massive $37 price cut just yesterday. Whether that holds long term remains to be seen, and with all other boards costing over $160 we may just be getting a short term sale. MSI has a nice rebate on the P4N Diamond [RTPE: MS-7160-010], and if you have to spring $200 for a motherboard you might as buy Tier 1.
Update: Since publication, we have found two great deals on nForce4 Intel boards including the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Pro and the MSI P4N SLI-FI. Both are great boards for the price, but unless you plan on using SLI capabilities the 945P motherboards still carry more features.
ATI's Crossfire Intel solution is on the horizon (again) as well. While there aren't any boards shipping now, nor will there be until September, competitive multi-PEG motherboards might be what this sector needs to bring the cost of this sector down.
We'll mention Intel's 915P lineup this week, although it may be one of the last times we need to. Intel roadmaps revealed that 915P is almost EOL in favor of the much more capable 945P lineup. Your money is better spent on a current generation Intel lineup or an AMD combo instead.