Price Guides November 2004: CPU and Motherboards

AMD Motherboards - Via K8T800

Via continues their K8T800-based motherboard lineups with new releases from both Epox (9NDA3+) and Soltek (SL-K8TPro-939), which only help to expand the possibilities for those looking to get onboard the Athlon 64 bandwagon. On top of that, prices for Via-based A64 boards seem to be coming down little by little, not that they were ever the most expensive options from the beginning. In the end, more choice is a great thing for everyone and board makers seem to be on a roll now with no end in sight.

Socket 754

The MSI K8T800 (754) Neo-FIS2R still shows up this week as a high-value, low-cost motherboard that would work well for any new system build where overclocking isn't the primary objective. Our past review of this board shows that the Neo-FIS2R is a fully loaded board sporting everything from gigabit LAN, RAID, firewire, LED-based diagnostics, and 5.1 audio with a plethora of inputs and outputs, all in a great layout that would work well for just about any case design today. The performance of this board is also top-notch, giving you the most out of your socket 754 chip. This is important, since 754 will not have as long of a CPU upgrade path as 939. So, getting as much as possible from 754 only helps to bring more value to the table.

Socket 939

For those looking to get the latest and greatest, as well as take advantage of AMD's newer 90nm parts, the Abit K8T800 Pro (939) AV8 board is where it's at. This one has everything that we have come to expect from a motherboard today, including gigabit LAN, SAT, firewire, onboard 5.1 sound, and high-end performance.