Reviews of Intel manufactured boards are something of a rarity.  They are not marketed in the same way other motherboards are – almost not at all in comparison.  It could be argued that reviews are only seen coming at the start of a chipset release, coinciding with what we as reviewers get in our media kits from Intel itself.  However, to an enthusiast, it is strange to say that they sell well – consumers or system builders wanting to pair a processor with a board without hassle can go straight in at an Intel motherboard/processor combo.  The question is with an enthusiast platform such as X79, would you really want to deal with an Intel board?  Read on for the full review.

In the pursuit of sheer performance, a user should aim to combine the ultimate CPU with the ultimate everything else – motherboard, memory, and so on. The latest enthusiast platform to hit our streets is Intel’s Sandy Bridge-E and X79 chipset, released today.

So to start a series of X79 reviews, we are going to have a look at what the X79 chipset brings to the table over other Intel chipsets, and the first motherboard under our microscope is the ASUS P9X79 Pro, coming in at an RRP of $329.99. Needless to say, this is fairly expensive in the land of motherboards, even when pairing it with a $1000 CPU. However, if previous Intel chipsets are anything to go by, ASUS PRO boards get a lot of attention. So the question becomes ‘Is it worth it?’ Read on for the full review.

With recent reports showing a profit for AMD from Llano, we can safely say that the processors, and thus the chipsets, are selling. As a result, we have taken a full size A75 board each from ASUS and Gigabyte, in the $115-$120 range, and put them through their paces to see which one we would use. Read on for the full comparison.

The low powered AMD Fusion market is still an active one, and although the ASUS E35M1-M Pro has been available for a while, we have been asked to have a look.  By definition, it is a low powered board with a 1.6 GHz dual core and a 500 MHz GPU clock with 80 stream processors.  We clocked a basic system at around 32 W idle, with the APU cooled passively. Read on for our E35M1-M Pro review.

In a world where space is at a premium, the smaller motherboards get, and yet still retain full functionality, never ceases to amaze me.  With desktop Llano processors taking the integrated graphics crown, an all-in-one mini Llano system becomes ever more appealing.  To support this, ASUS have sent us their premium mini-ITX motherboard for review, which I have put through the bench suite.  Read on for the full review!

With every chipset, there's a call to arms in providing the package that everyone needs. Unfortunately there's never one motherboard which can cater for every possibility, but there are some that come quite close. Our review today is on the Zotac Z68ITX-A-E Wifi - a mini-ITX take on the Z68 chipset, which promises to be a winner right from the start, with dual gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0, onboard wifi, onboard power/reset buttons, a debug LED, a lot of extras with your motherboard, and all the extras that Z68 offers. For $170, we're looking at a good contender for an award here, as long as the performance and additions compare well to its rivals. Read on for the full review!

Today, we will be looking at the ASUS P8P67. Although the board has been available for some time, this is one of ASUS' cheaper full size P67 ATX offerings. Considering it has a price tag of $155 ($140 with rebate), it offers quite a few useful features such as DIGI+ VRM, BT GO! (Bluetooth), a total of four USB 3.0 ports, and Quad-GPU CrossFireX support.

If you remember back to October 2008, there were distinct murmurings about Hydra - an encompassing hardware and software solution to bring multiple GPUs together to act as one.  Then, in January 2010, Ryan tested the Hydra chip, with the end result being: more development required.  In my hands is the ECS P67H2-A, one of the latest boards to include the Hydra solution.  Armed with the latest version of the Hydra software too, I'm here to review this board, to see if it works as a suitable P67 solution, and if Hydra has anything more to offer.

Despite what you could buy many years ago for more than a thousand dollars, you can now get the same performance in a motherboard/CPU combo for under $200.  But at present, with your dual core 1.6 GHz chip, there's WiFi, SATA 6 Gbps, somewhat capable onboard graphics, DDR3 support and potentially USB 3.0.  Today, we're entering the realm of Hudson-M1: the Fusion E-350 domain.  For this review we look at three very different mini-ITX Fusion E-350 boards on the market, from the expensive but completely passive ASUS E35M1-I Deluxe, the cheaper but still jam packed ECS HDC-I, and the SO-DIMM equipped Zotac FUSION350-A-E.

Gigabyte has released their Z68 lineup, and I am going to look at the UD3H - a $170 Z68 board aimed at the mainstream consumer market. The Z68 based motherboards are very similar to the P67 equivalent but they have had a few extra features added. They include Virtu and SSD caching as well as allowing you to take advantage of the GPU built into your Sandy Bridge processor. Is it worth switching from P67 to Z68 for a few extra features?

Our initial tests with the ASRock A75 Extreme6 were based on a pre-release model, and shown in our preview.  At that point, the board design was not finalized and the BIOS was still quite raw, but the performance was essentially complete.  However, now in my grasp is the full release version of the Extreme6.  Alongside this standard motherboard review, and testing to see whether it's worth the $150 asking price, we're also going to take a good look at the overclocking features of the Desktop Llano chipset.

It's been a while since we've discussed AMD motherboards at AnandTech—over the next few months, I am hoping to bring them back. To start, we have our first Desktop Llano product on the test bed—the ASRock A75 Extreme6. Unfortunately, what I've been testing is still 'a work in progress'—so there are issues with the BIOS and design still to be decided. For now I'll let you know what I've found, in terms of performance and design. But when the full board comes my way with release information, I'll post a full review. Read more for a sneak peak!