Price Guide, November 2005: Motherboards
by Haider Farhan on November 5, 2005 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Introduction
Well, it's that time again for another one of our motherboard price guides. Like many of our other guides, we would like to start off with pointing out a few things about our RTPE. Our RTPE is the only engine to use our own bots to fish price data directly from the vendor. It uses a search technology called Irk that crawls through thousands of links per hour to assure the best prices for our consumers. We constantly track all of the highly recommended and rated merchants and since we do not collect revenue from the merchants for link traffic, we are free to use merchants that have competitive pricing rather than deep advertising pockets . Go ahead and give our RTPE a try next time that you're in the market for computer hardware; we're sure that you'll find it especially useful.
Socket 939 motherboards are slowly declining in price; catching up to the prices of their Socket 754 counterparts, making the Socket 939 front the most logical solution. Our recommendations are usually not really specific to any brand, but this week, we've noticed the best deals from Gigabyte and MSI. Most prices are roughly the same since our last price guide, while we observed the most changes in the nForce4 SLI - Socket 939 platform.
Athlon 64 - Socket 939
Out of all the SLI boards that are showing up in our RTPE, the one with the most significant price decrease is the Abit AN8 SLI [RTPE: AN8 SLI] with a change of $3.45. On the other hand, recently the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI [RTPE: GA-K8NU-SLI] has increased about $21. Everything has either stayed at the same price point since our last price guide or has had a small fluctuation of a few cents to a couple of dollars. The price leader this week is the Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI [RTPE: GA-K8N-SLI] going for $91 shipped.
The Asus nForce4 Ultra A8N-E [RTPE: A8N-E] has gone down about $8 over the past week; bringing it down to about $105. While the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra [RTPE: GA-K8N Ultra] has been steadily increasing in price over the past few weeks, currently up nearly $18, which can be seen in the graph below.
Not as popular as the nForce 4 chipsets, VIA is still hanging in there with a few boards. Just as the last price guide, currently, the best priced board is the Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 [RTPE: GA-K8T890-9] on sale for $76 plus shipping.
For those who have invested in a nice AGP card and also want the ability to upgrade to a PCI-E card later on, the Asrock ULi M1695 [RTPE: 939Dual-SATA2] would be a great option. At the moment, it is going for $72 shipped. The 939Dual-SATA2 has both a PCI-E slot and an 8x AGP slot, which will allow you to upgrade to a PCI-E card without having to dish out extra cash for a new board.
Lastly in the Socket 939 platform, we have the boards with the nForce 3 chipset. We wouldn't recommend one of these boards again unless you already have invested in a nice AGP card because these motherboards only have AGP slots. Currently, of these boards, the MSI K8N Neo2-F is the only one that has had any price changes. It decreased a mere one dollar and is still the cheapest of the bunch at $74 shipped.
Well, it's that time again for another one of our motherboard price guides. Like many of our other guides, we would like to start off with pointing out a few things about our RTPE. Our RTPE is the only engine to use our own bots to fish price data directly from the vendor. It uses a search technology called Irk that crawls through thousands of links per hour to assure the best prices for our consumers. We constantly track all of the highly recommended and rated merchants and since we do not collect revenue from the merchants for link traffic, we are free to use merchants that have competitive pricing rather than deep advertising pockets . Go ahead and give our RTPE a try next time that you're in the market for computer hardware; we're sure that you'll find it especially useful.
Socket 939 motherboards are slowly declining in price; catching up to the prices of their Socket 754 counterparts, making the Socket 939 front the most logical solution. Our recommendations are usually not really specific to any brand, but this week, we've noticed the best deals from Gigabyte and MSI. Most prices are roughly the same since our last price guide, while we observed the most changes in the nForce4 SLI - Socket 939 platform.
Athlon 64 - Socket 939
Out of all the SLI boards that are showing up in our RTPE, the one with the most significant price decrease is the Abit AN8 SLI [RTPE: AN8 SLI] with a change of $3.45. On the other hand, recently the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra-SLI [RTPE: GA-K8NU-SLI] has increased about $21. Everything has either stayed at the same price point since our last price guide or has had a small fluctuation of a few cents to a couple of dollars. The price leader this week is the Gigabyte GA-K8N-SLI [RTPE: GA-K8N-SLI] going for $91 shipped.
The Asus nForce4 Ultra A8N-E [RTPE: A8N-E] has gone down about $8 over the past week; bringing it down to about $105. While the Gigabyte GA-K8N Ultra [RTPE: GA-K8N Ultra] has been steadily increasing in price over the past few weeks, currently up nearly $18, which can be seen in the graph below.
Gigabyte nForce4 Ultra (939) GA-K8N Ultra-9
Not as popular as the nForce 4 chipsets, VIA is still hanging in there with a few boards. Just as the last price guide, currently, the best priced board is the Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 [RTPE: GA-K8T890-9] on sale for $76 plus shipping.
For those who have invested in a nice AGP card and also want the ability to upgrade to a PCI-E card later on, the Asrock ULi M1695 [RTPE: 939Dual-SATA2] would be a great option. At the moment, it is going for $72 shipped. The 939Dual-SATA2 has both a PCI-E slot and an 8x AGP slot, which will allow you to upgrade to a PCI-E card without having to dish out extra cash for a new board.
Lastly in the Socket 939 platform, we have the boards with the nForce 3 chipset. We wouldn't recommend one of these boards again unless you already have invested in a nice AGP card because these motherboards only have AGP slots. Currently, of these boards, the MSI K8N Neo2-F is the only one that has had any price changes. It decreased a mere one dollar and is still the cheapest of the bunch at $74 shipped.
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SniperWulf - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
no mention of the EPOX s754 SLI board? its a nice package for just over $100CWK - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
How about a section for micro-ATX boards (and some reviews maybe?)microAmp - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Any plans on doing a review on this motherboard? Asrock M1695 939Dual-SATA2Hopefully not a cherry picked one from the manufacture either.
Anton74 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
They've already done this nearly 2 months ago: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2524">ASRock 939Dual-SATA2: First Retail ULi PCIe/AGPmicroAmp - Sunday, November 6, 2005 - link
Can't believe I missed that :) Thanks!IRQ Conflict - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
What is more supprising is the :(http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16281&a..."> DFI LANParty UT RDX200 CF-DR doesn't seem to be in the list eitherKristopherKubicki - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Well, we could recommend a $120 SLI motherboard, or a $250 Xpress 200 motherboard. SLI for me - that's for sure :)Kristopher
Anton74 - Saturday, November 5, 2005 - link
Are the new Socket 939 boards based on the GeForce 6150/6100 (and 410/430 southbridges) not yet included in this guide?I think they are very good alternatives to nForce4, especially if you want both integrated graphics and gigabit LAN.
highlandsun - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
I was just looking at the Asus A8N-VM CSM, looks like it'd do well for an HTPC but I wish it had digital audio inputs. It has a coax S/PDIF out but I'd like a board with optical I/O. Do any of those others have optical in and out?rrcn - Monday, November 7, 2005 - link
It looks like the only board that has In and Out is the Gigabyte GA-K8N51GMF-9. Although it has coaxial in and out, you can always purchase a coaxial to optical converter/adapter.