Intel Motherboards

On to the Intel boards, be sure to pick up a board cladding the 975X chipset due out sometime this week. With this chipset, you have the multiple PEG support, Presler EE, Presler and Cedar Mill core support, up to 8GB of RAM including ECC memory, 533/667 DDR2 RAM and the Intel Memory Pipeline Technology.

Price-wise, we’re expecting the 975X based boards to be roughly the same as the 955X based motherboards. However, the 975X will not support the Yonah, nor the Conroe. The support for those two will be for the 945GM to do so, but not until around Q1 of next year.

Read more about the Yonah in Anand’s elite preview: Intel Yonah Performance Preview - Part I: The Exclusive First Look at Yonah.

The boards featuring the 955X chipsets haven’t seen much of any price fluctuations since the last price cuts, approximately one month ago. They are still fairly expensive and are meant to replace the 945P, but aren’t doing such a great job of it. We suggest that you hold out on this until the 975X chipset rolls along into the market.



If you are looking into going with a cheap dual-core CPU, an i945P based motherboard would be a decent choice. By the way, the 945P and 955X both support the Presler and Cedar Mill cores as well, but will not support the Presler Extreme Edition.

For features, value and performance, the Gigabyte 945P GA-8I945P-G [RTPE: GA-8I945P-G] is an excellent choice going for about $107. As you can see from Gary Key’s article, there still may be hope with the newer 945P based motherboards.



For 2D home office work, a motherboard with the 945G chipset is one to consider. Leading the pack this time around is the ASUS 945G P5LD2-VM [RTPE: P5LD2-VM] on sale for $108. We also suggest that you consider the Gigabyte 945G GA-8I945G Pro [RTPE: GA-8I945G Pro] or the MSI 945G Neo-F [RTPE: MS-7176-040].



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  • Beenthere - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link

    It would be very telling to have an honest survey that indicates how often people buy a new Mobo. I'm sure there are gamers and speed junkies that buy a new Mobo every chance they can but I doubt the majority of PC enthusiasts run out and buy the latest and greatest Mobo, CPU, memory, PSU, heatsink, etc. every time a new model comes out. And for those who do buy a new Mobo, CPU, memory, etc. every couple months, what do you do with the old hardware??? Hopefully it's given to someone who can put it to good use???
  • xtremejack - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link

    A while back I was waiting for 975x, because it would support Pressler *and* Conroe. Now it looks like it will not. If there will a single motherboard supporting both Yonah and Conroe, then I am gonna jump for mobo+Yonah for sure. Far better looking option than Pressler
  • kilkennycat - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link

    Your wish is likely to go wanting. You can bet that Intel will change CPU pinouts and profiles as often as possible to sell more high-end chip-sets and motherboards, just as they have done with Yonah and the Pentium-M. Exactly the same number of pins, but physically incompatible !! Intel is not sinking all that new money in chip-set plants for nothing. A would-be monopolist in marketing fancy-dress. Grrrr............More power to the AMD lawsuit.
  • IntelUser2000 - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link

    975X WILL support Conroe, except not on the initial batches, just like Prescott and 865/875 times.

    Yonah's desktop chipset is called 945GT so look for that.
  • KristopherKubicki - Monday, December 5, 2005 - link

    The chipset can support it, but the socket is different.

    Kristopher
  • imaheadcase - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link

    It can't come fast enough, i want to order that one for sure :D
  • kilkennycat - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link

    ..... hard to get, therefore omitted ??
  • rrcn - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link

    The A8N32-SLI is http://labs.anandtech.com/search.php?q=A8N32-SLI">showing up on the RTPE as preorder only. Anything on preorder will not show up on the charts in our guides.
  • kilkennycat - Sunday, December 4, 2005 - link

    Thanks for the clarification. They have been actually shipping from Newegg and ZipZoomFly for the past month (no pre-orders are accepted at either vendor) but each batch sells out almost immediately.

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