EQS's Crossfire Motherboard

Subject: Motherboards | October 20, 2005 - 06:09 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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HEXUS has had the EQS A72K9-CF for a while now, but haven't had an ATI Master card until now.  Now that they do have it, you can read their review in full.

"EQS enabled HEXUS with its EQS A72K9-CF CrossFire Edition mainboard literally weeks before we got

our grubby paws on the ATi Master graphics board required to complete the platform for our

analysis on the launch of the CrossFire platform.

Dual processor setup, with a single chip implementation

Subject: Motherboards | October 17, 2005 - 05:38 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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LostCircuits reviews the server/workstation class Foxconn Winfast NFPIK8AA-8EKRS motherboard.  Built around the nForce4 profession chipset, you need to read the full review to get an idea of what they did with this motherboard.  Essentially a dual CPU board, but without the second socket, definately unique, and definately powerful.

"Foxconn is one of the world's largest OEM manufacturers of computer parts and only recently has started to enter the enthusiast market.

TYAN INVOKES DUAL CORE POWER WITH DUAL PRODUCT LAUNCH

Subject: Motherboards | October 14, 2005 - 01:27 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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FREMONT, CA, USA, October 6th, 2005 - Leveraging on the power of dual core processors to deliver the power needed to meet demanding application requirements, Tyan is launching not one, but TWO dual core products.

One motherboard that fits Socket 939 or 754!

Subject: Motherboards | October 13, 2005 - 04:42 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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ECS + PC Chips = One bloody bizarre motherboard.

The ECS PF88 is based on an incredibly flexible SiS chipset.  I can handle Pentium 4 or Athlon64 chips, your choice.   Read all about this innovative board at hardCOREware.

"Not many people noticed when two of the most boring Motherboard OEMs merged last summer. ECS and PC Chips were never really known for making amazing or innovative products, instead focusing on low end, mainstream hardware. But they assured us, times were changing.

VIA's K8V890 chipset keeps going

Subject: Motherboards | October 11, 2005 - 01:49 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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If the high price of nForce4 boards are keeping you from moving to 64 bit computing, consider Gigabyte's GA-K8V890-9.  It isn't going to outshine a comparable nVidia bases board, but it is also significantl cheaper.  Head to HardwareZone for the full review of this boards capabilities.

"VIA may have become the underdogs in the chipset race, but we find out that the old dog still has some bite in it.

ASRock Motherboard with a split personality

Subject: Motherboards | October 6, 2005 - 11:44 AM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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T-break has a review of the ASRock 939Dual SATA2 up, the board with a dual personality. It will take dual core CPU's, it has Dual Channel Memory, both IDE (3) and SATA (2), an odd slot labeled "future CPU slot" and the ability to accept either an AGP 8x card, or a PCIe 16x, although not both at the same time.  All that and a price that is under $100.

"The ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 has a decent set of features supporting the 939 pin based Athlon64/Dual Core CPUs with dual channel memory controller as well a

ECS nForce4 comes with everything, barring a sink

Subject: Motherboards | September 30, 2005 - 02:09 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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It's nice to have choices, and the nForce chipset certainly offers that.  The newest one to be reviewed at PCStats is the ECS KN1-SLI Extreme, with all the functionality you'd expect, and switchless SLI.  Check it out.

"The ECS KN1-SLI Extreme looks like a pretty sweet motherboard for anyone on a budget who wants good performance, and the all important option of running dual PCI Express x16 SLI-compatible videocards.

4 NForce4 SLI Mobo's for your consideration

Subject: Motherboards | September 28, 2005 - 04:57 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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This board has everything, good looks, gobs of functionality and speed, in fact the only limitation that nV News could find was FSB overclocking.  Not because of a specific problem with the board, but because the PCI Express bus, SATA, and the link between north & south bridges all use the same clock generator.   You can't (yet) lock those frequencies in the BIOS, so you get problems with SATA and PCI Express devices if you push it too far.

"The MSI P4N Diamond has a great list

Mobo's & Processors & Chipsets, Oh My!

Subject: Motherboards | September 26, 2005 - 06:43 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Surprise, its the nForce4 SLI Intel Edition from Biostar.  If you love nForce, but need to go with Intel, it's no longer a problem.  The board has all you'd expect from nForce 4, with the nice simplicity of setup that BioStar tends to prefer, according to Bjorn3D.  If it's not a motherboard you want, 4 new chips were announced today, one Intel and 3 AMD.

"For years, NVIDIA fans and general enthusiasts wondered if NVIDIA would ever release an Intel chipset.

ECS' s939 Budget SLI Board

Subject: Motherboards | September 23, 2005 - 12:38 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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Just because the ECS' Nforce 4 board, the KN1 SLI is touted as a discount board, doesn't mean they skimped on the layout of the board, or the package it comes with.  Read the full review at InsaneTek.

"The KN1 SLI Extreme is the latest AMD flagship motherboard from ECS. The motherboard performs well and has great overclocking potential.

Gigabyte's Newest Mobo's & More

Subject: Motherboards | September 21, 2005 - 07:20 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
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The Intel 945 chipset is taking it's time hitting the store, but Techniz got their hands on an offering from Gigabyte that uses it.  See how well it performs with a Prescott, DDR2 and SATA2.

"The GA-8I945P Pro was featuring the new Intel® 945P Express chipset with Hyper-Threading Technology delivers significant performance gains with variety of new generation architectures including the DDR2 main memory, PCI-Express interface, and Serial-ATA 2 interface for improving storage performa

Abit AN8 Ultra Motherboard Review

Subject: Motherboards | September 12, 2005 - 05:46 PM | Ryan Shrout
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HardOCP has reviewed the Abit AN8 Ultra motherboard today based on the nForce4 Ultra chipset.  Looks like the guys didn't find the fanless design all that appealing...

Remember that you are hearing all of this from a person that has been a huge fan of ABIT motherboards since their introduction of the "soft bios" in the mid-90s. Based on the ABIT motherboards that I have experienced over the last year, I have to wonder if ABIT has simply lost its grip on their marketing and engineering teams.

Mobo Shipments for Big Four Up

Subject: Motherboards | September 12, 2005 - 05:39 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Digitimes is reporting that the motherboard shipments for the "big four" have gone up for the month of August, a good sign for the industry as a whole. 

First-tier motherboard makers Asustek Computer, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), Gigabyte Technology, and Micro-Star International (MSI) shipped a combined 8.93 million motherboards in August, up 25.8-27.6% from the 7-7.1 million units they shipped during the same period last year.

As demand picked up in the traditional peak season,

ASRock 939Dual-SATA2 ULi 1695 Review

Subject: Motherboards | September 7, 2005 - 03:14 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Wesley over at Anandtech has posted a review of the ASRock board featuing the ULi 1695 chipset that sports both PCIe and AGP video card slots.

Many have been looking forward to the arrival of the first ULi chipset retail motherboards since our review of the ULi Reference boards. In the first Reference board review and the updated second ULi Reference, we found the performance of the on-board PCIe and AGP 8X to be both uncompromised.

ASRock and ULi Announce M1695-based Motherboard

Subject: Motherboards | August 31, 2005 - 03:10 PM | Ryan Shrout
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I got this in my email box this morning from both ULi and ASRock.  The ULi 1695 chipset supports both PCI Express x16 and native AGP 8x graphics interfaces.  This particular board from ASRock also supports CPU upgrade modules and they are touting support for future M2 processors next year via one of these modules.  Below is the full release I received.

Taipei, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)—August 31, 2005-- ULi Elect

ECS Editor's Day

Subject: Motherboards | August 30, 2005 - 04:27 PM | Ryan Shrout
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This is just a post to point you all to my quickie coverage of the recent ECS Editor's Day that I posted in my blog yesterday. 

Their other, even more daring offering, is something called Scalable Dual Graphics Engine.  SDGE is an attempt to make dual GPUs a more affordable and more open platform.  Theoretically, you can buy a motherboard based on any chipset that comes with two x16 PCIe slots, one of which has no PCIe actually going to it.&nbsp

ECS Shows Off CrossFire Board Readiness

Subject: Motherboards | August 26, 2005 - 02:55 PM | Ryan Shrout
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Here at an ECS Editor's Day in San Jose, motherboard partner ATI was on hand to showcase their upcoming CrossFire technology.  We were able to get some information on ECS' upcoming CrossFire motherboards.  For the Intel platform, there is the PA1 MVP and for the AMD platform there is the KA1 MVP.  We also saw the first mention of the upcoming ATI R580 chipset.  Here are some quick specs:

• PA1 MVP


• ATI RD400 + SB450 chipsets


• 1066 MHz FSB


• Dual channel DDR2-667 and

Epox EP-9NPA+ SLI Motherboard Review

Subject: Motherboards | August 25, 2005 - 08:56 PM | Joe White
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PC Stats put together a review of the Epox-9NPA+ SLI motherboard based on the nForce4 SLI chipset. Check it out.

"The Epox 9NPA+ SLI supports any current and future socket 939 AMD Athlon64 processor and is based on the Nvidia nForce4 SLI chipset with support for up to 4GB of PC3200 DDR memory. The Epox EP-9NPA+SLI motherboard adds on to this capability with an on board PCI Express-based Silicon Image SiI3132 Serial ATA II controller.