by Veridian3 on 15/07/2009
First up on the review bench is the top model in the Asus P6T desktop family, the P6T Deluxe V2, it competes against two high performance boards from Foxconn, the FlamingBlade and BloodRage GTI. Read on to find out which best meets your requirements in regards to performance and functionality.
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by Veridian3 on 22/05/2009
Since the release of Core-i7 there has been a steady release of performance motherboards which allow consumers the opportunity to create a great high specification system. In the past getting the best performance always meant using ATX boards even though technology in just about every other area has been getting more compact.
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by Veridian3 on 09/01/2009
Last month we took a look at a selection of boards which were released around i7 launch time, some of which were very impressive. Today we have four more X58 based boards from MSI, ECS and Foxconn and we will run each of the boards through a selection of real world tests including media encoding, Photoshop and gaming as well as some overclocking. By the end of this review you should be in no doubt which board best suits your needs when building a new Core i7 system.
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by Veridian3 on 11/12/2008
Today we have three boards (Intel, Gigabyte & Asus)on our review bench and we will be running them through a selection of tests, mainly in real world scenarios, to establish which deserves to be the basis for your new Core i7 system. Whether you are an overclocker, video editor, Photoshop professional or gamer... this is the article to read.
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by Veridian3 on 20/11/2008
In our latest Socket 775 roundup we have a collection of Socket 775 motherboards which are aimed at enthusiasts and surprisingly not all come with a huge price tag.
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by Nathan Marks on 18/11/2008
Founded in 1986, Gigabyte made a name for themselves manufacturing cutting edge motherboards and VGA solutions. They also offer a selection of other products from pre-built PC's to network equipment and mobile phones. It is in manufacturing motherboards though where their true passion is, and today were going to look at the EP45-DS3R, one of the inexpensive options among a plethora of offerings from the company.
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by Veridian3 on 07/10/2008
Given the recent domination of the CPU market by Intel it seems strange to think that they have any need to release new CPU models. Today we look at a hot new motherboard from Asus which supports the upcoming Intel Nehalem platform.
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by Veridian3 on 21/08/2008
Today we will be comparing eight motherboards for Intel processors and showing how each performs as well as looking at the features they have to offer. Tests include gaming, media playback, image manipulation and more, so by the end of the article we should be a bit better placed to know which chipset or board is ideal for consumers using Intel processors.
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by Veridian3 on 02/08/2008
XFX offered us the opportunity to review a number of their value segment motherboards with onboard graphics, they told us that their products were capable of taking on the best AMD and Intel had to offer. This is quite a claim so after tracking down some impressive AM2/Socket 775 boards we put XFX to their word.
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by Vikingod on 01/08/2008
Today we are taking a look at the ASRock X48TurboTwins-WiFi. Based on the Intel X48 + ICH9R chipsets, this motherboard supports up to 8GB of Dual Channel DDR3 1600 and up to 4GB of Dual Channel DDR2 1066, ATI Crossfire, and WiFi-802.11g.
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by Veridian3 on 06/05/2008
In the near future Asus will be launching their P5Q3 Deluxe motherboard which is based on the Intel P45 chipset. We have had an early sample of the board running in our offices for a little while now and today we have a preview for you...
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by Veridian3 on 18/01/2008
Asus Maximus Extreme
Asus Maximus Formula
MSI P35 Platinum Combo
Asus P5E3 Deluxe
MSI X48 Platinum
For anyone buying a socket 775 motherboard the choice is now quite bewildering. For a while the number one choice was the 975X chipset but more recently the G33, P35, X38 and X48 have all been released with each targeting a specific market segment. Today we will be looking at the mainstream and enthusiast models to identify which boards offer the best value, performance and features.
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by WhO_KnOwS on 07/01/2008
Gigabyte are a Taiwan based manfacturer with a vast portfolio comprising Pc's. optical drives, LCD monitors, keyboards, mice and cooling components. They are however best known for their high quality enthusiast motherboards. Today we are taking a look at their new GA-G33M-S2H. This is based on the G33 Express Chipset that supports the latest multi-core processors up to 1333MHz FSB and the new 45nm platform.
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by Veridian3 on 07/08/2007
AMD's 690G chipset has proven to be very successful with a wide array of microATX boards currently available covering various price points and feature sets. At the time of our original review we found the 690G products to be impressive performers when compared to the Nvidia based GeForce 6050 and nForce 430 chipsets. However since then Nvidia have released an updated motherboard solution which features updated onboard graphics and Southbridge.
Today we are taking a look at a high specification 690G motherboard from EQS and comparing it to Abit’s new AN-M2HD which utilizes the Nvidia 7050PV/NF630a feature set.
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by Veridian3 on 15/07/2007
There is no doubting that XFX make truly impressive graphics cards, here at Driver Heaven we have found their 8xxx series cards to be the best in each of the market segments, they have in fact won more "Heavenly Hardware Gold Awards" than any other graphics card manufacturer. As well as making stellar hardware XFX always supply their products with great presentation and incorporate the highest engineering standards. So when they sent us a review sample of their latest high end Nvidia 6 series motherboard we were extremely interested to ascertain if this tradition of great performance and specifications was to continue.
Today’s review product is XFX’s 680i LT SLI motherboard, a product which takes the performance of the full 680i chipset and combines it with a more affordable set of features. The main differences being that the LT board lacks an extra GB lan port and a 3rd PCIe 8x slot.
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by Veridian3 on 03/07/2007
It’s nearly a year since the Intel 965 chipset first made it to retail and whilst it is still a great performer these motherboards are up against some strong competition in the form of Nvidia’s 680i chipset. As well as being a little lacking compared to the aforementioned Nvidia part the upcoming move to 45nm and 1333FSB processors has resulted in a new high end chipset being produced by Intel.
As well as featuring enhanced CPU support, the new chipset is able to compete with other products in regards to memory support, finally officially breaking through the DDR2-800 limit which has been in place on many Intel based boards for some time now. Today we have four boards to review from four manufacturers which take slightly different approaches to this chipset.
The boards being tested are the Gigabyte P35-DQ6, Abit IP35 Pro Off Limits, Asus P5K Deluxe and MSI P35 Platinum, let’s see how the P35 handles.
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by Veridian3 on 20/06/2007
Whilst the real performance users may be a little disappointed not to have new boards available with higher specifications than the 580, those on a budget have a plethora of new boards to choose from and we have two such products to test today, Sapphires Pure Innovation and MSI’s K9GAM2. Let’s see how they compare to one of the current value segment leaders, the Asus M2NPV-VM.
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by Veridian3 on 12/04/2007
A few months back we took a look at the first real generation of Core2 boards which were based on the Intel 975x chipset. At the time it was arguably the best chipset available for the Core2, however in recent times both AMD and Nvidia have taken a stab at stealing the performance crown with their 680i and 690 chipsets respectively. Our first look at the 680i was hugely disappointing with the early reference designs being plagued with problems, ranging from PS2 keyboard compatibility issues to quad core bugs. That said, some manufacturers took a little more time to bring their products to market and so with this in mind we revisit the chipset in the form of Abit's IN9 32X-MAX. The recently released Fatality F-I90HD is the second product on test today, based on the brand new AMD 690 chipset it is a more budget conscious board with great potential to compete with the more expensive models. Finally we have Intel's D975XBX2, an updated version of the original XBX which is the best Intel board we have used to date.
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by Grace on 16/01/2007
Since the release of the AM2 socket, NVIDIA has been enjoying the largest share of the motherboard chipset market. The nForce 5 series chipsets dominate not only at the high end but also at the value motherboard production lines. Today we will take a look at a motherboard made by the company which created the reference nForce 590i motherboards, Foxconn. Foxconn entered the retail market only recently, but they are old in the industrial and OEM business. They must have felt confident about their work on the reference nForce 590i motherboard, because they released it nearly unchanged to the retail market. If most reference motherboards of other companies ever made it to the retail market, it would be nothing more than trouble, but we feel confident about NVIDIA’s and Foxconn’s combined effort. The name of the motherboard is C51XEM2AA, which is certainly not the easiest model number to memorise.
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by Grace on 14/11/2006
The three motherboards we have for review today are the Abit KN9-SLI, the Asus M2N-E and the MSI K9N Platinum. All of the three are in the 90-120 Euro price range. The Asus and MSI motherboards are using the nForce 570 Ultra chipset, while the Abit is the only one which supports SLI and is using the nForce 570 SLI chipset.
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by Veridian3 on 02/11/2006
Back in January Intel introduced the world to the D975XBX motherboard which was the first retail board based on the 975X chipset. Since then motherboard manufacturers have been releasing their own boards based on the same chipset. Two of the most recent efforts come from DFI and Abit. The DFI offering is a reasonably basic affair with a bios that should appeal to the enthusiast where as Abit throw in everything that a consumer should ever need (and then some). Let’s take a look to see how they both compare to a recent revision of the D975XBX.
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by Aaron on 27/10/2006
It’s no secret that Intel’s new Core 2 Duo (and upcoming Quadro) has stirred up a great amount of buzz in over clocking circles. What was an AMD dominated field has been usurped by the new low voltage dual core creations of Intel.
Never one to let down its enthusiasts, Abit has unveiled their new AW9D-Max which they promise to be the Intel enthusiast/overclocking board.
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by Veridian3 on 11/07/2006
Today we'll take the world’s first look at Abit's new Fatality AN9 32x SLI motherboard. Abit are not the first to market with an AM2 board however they do produce some of the most feature packed products which perform to the highest level.
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by Grace on 08/06/2006
Motherboard manufacturers traditionally try to create well built, cost-effective motherboards that have as many features as possible. That makes sense of course, since most of their revenue comes from selling products to Joe User, and not to the enthusiast community. Nevertheless, for several years now the top motherboard manufacturers spend a lot of time and money designing and producing enthusiast-oriented solutions that are usually more pricey, but at the same time offer that little bit of extra that the overclocking and enthusiast community has come to expect. Abit is one of the most respected companies in this field, designing high class motherboards, which overclockers tend to love. In this article we will have a look on what is touted by many as the best motherboard for the Socket 939 platform, the AN8-32X.
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by Veridian3 on 28/05/2006
We have heard a lot about Intel’s Viiv for a while now however it’s taken quite some time for Viiv certified products to reach retail in any reasonable numbers. The motherboard we have to review today is ECS’s first take on the Viiv platform. For most manufacturers this would mean providing the basic specifications required to be able to add Viiv logos to their boxes, however this is certainly not so in the case of ECS.
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by Grace on 22/05/2006
Many consumers who want to build, upgrade or migrate to a socket 939 platform believe only nForce 4 SLI motherboards to be “high end” products, especially when it comes to overclocking. This is not entirely true as there are products which are designed to perform and overclock well without offering SLI, aiming at the middle range of the market. It is a fact that the majority of gamers prefer a good VGA card than two average VGA cards anyway. We will take a thorough look at such a motherboard today, designed and built by Epox, the 9NPA+ Ultra.
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by Grace on 05/04/2006
The Gigabyte K8U-939 is a socket 939 motherboard, based on the ULi M1689 chipset. It has an AGP slot instead of a PCI-E one and works with DDR RAM, so users with older socket A/478 motherboards can upgrade to it without having to upgrade their RAM and GFX as well. It also features Dual Channel DDR, can support the newest X2 Dual Core processors and 64-bit technology so it is striving to be a competitive solution for those who are thinking about upgrading without spending a fortune. The low price of the motherboard certainly adds to that, but can it compete at all with high-end motherboards in regards to performance?
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by Veridian3 on 03/04/2006
Our review on the Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe was held off for a while, as our regulars will know we were working closely with Asus in fixing some rather major clock issues and due to our intervention Asus allowed us to host and release a beta bios last week. So while other sites published reviews with the faulty bios, we waited until we could deliver an accurate and indepth look at this rather impressive board from Asus. This review is a double whammy as we are also testing a HIS X1900 Crossfire setup.
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by Veridian3 on 27/06/2005
The MSI 945P Neo Platinum, as the name suggests uses Intel’s non-onboard gfx 945 chipset and mixes it with MSI’s own feaures such as the DOT3 overclocking. To aid all of you pondering your next upgrade on the socket 775 platform we will include comparison results from Abit’s AA8XE Fatal1ty board and the recently released P5ND2-SLI Deluxe board from Asus which is based on the Nforce 4 chipset...
... Our synthetic tests show really interesting figures, in every single test the 945 based MSI board is faster than the 925XE and Nforce4 based boards. Considering how fast the NF4 chipset actually is this is a real achievement for MSI/Intel and as far as synthetic tests go the MSI 945P Neo Platinum is the fastest board we have tested to date.
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by Veridian3 on 14/06/2005
The intel sector has taken huge leaps forward in terms of catering for the power user with manufacturers such as Abit providing some excellent enthusiast features and our first board for testing today is one such board, the Abit Fatal1ty AA8XE which uses the Intel 925 chipset. If you’re not going down the Intel chipset route there are several choices, ATI, SIS, Via and now Nvidia have stepped into the arena with their Nforce 4 chipset which provides us with the basis for our second motherboard the Asus P5Nd2- SLI Deluxe…
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by Veridian3 on 16/04/2005
Last week we brought you a preview of the ASUS P5RD1-V Deluxe motherboard which looked specifically at the feature set of the board including the first onboard DirectX9 chipset for Intel. As the sample we received was a pre production board we refrained from publishing any information on performance as it may not have fully represented the abilities of the shipping product. Since then however we have received a retail sample of the P5RD1-V (non deluxe) which is basically the same board minus the onboard TV tuner and we’ve run it through its paces in a number of tests.
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by Veridian3 on 08/04/2005
Those of you with good memories may recall a picture from CeBit of a new ATI based motherboard on the Asus stand aimed at the Intel platform. Boards from that family are nearing completion at Asus and today we have a preview of the first to be released, the P5RD1-V Deluxe. This board is very interesting for many reasons though the two most important are that it’s based on the excellent Radeon Xpress chipset (with integrated DX9 graphics) and that the board is the first available in the world to come with an integrated TV tuner.
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by Veridian3 on 03/02/2005
The move to PCI express can be an expensive one, depending on your current setup you could be looking at changing your CPU, memory, graphics card, power supply and motherboard – basically the whole system. So what if you want to upgrade in stages? Well one of the options is to buy an agp motherboard and keep your existing graphics card, this will you save your hard earned cash and buy the other components. For this reason and the fact that there is still a huge market out there for AGP based boards we’ve decided today to move away from PCI express for a while and see what MSI’s high end AGP based board has to offer and how it performs when compared to the Nforce 4 based SLI and Radeon Xpress reference board. The results came as somewhat of a surprise to us…
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by Veridian3 on 29/01/2005
Nearly two months ago ATI released their Radeon Xpress chipset for AMD cpu’s, it was one of the first boards to be with reviewers which featured PCI Express for the AMD platform. The Xpress chipset has yet to make it to market however the NForce 4 boards are beginning to trickle through; one of the first boards to do so is the Asus A8N-SLI. It’s no secret that we love Asus products here at Driverheaven, over the last 2 years every product we have received from them has been first class in terms of performance and build quality, so going into the review we hoped for the same from the A8N-SLI.
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by Chaos on 31/12/2004
Today we are going to have a look at the MSI K8N Neo Nforce 3 250Gb chipset based motherboard. This is their mainstream Nforce 3 motherboard for AMD socket 754. The K8N Neo is not capable of running in Dual channel mode so if that is a must have feature then perhaps look towards the K8N Neo Ultra based on AMD's socket 939 technology.
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by Veridian3 on 12/12/2004
Due to Abits decision to skip socket 940 its been a while since we looked at any of their AMD motherboards. Today though we have an AV8 to review, I was really looking forward to this one having thought the nf7-s was excellent and the AI7 even better. Our 939 board of choice up to this point has been the MSI K8T-Neo2-FIR as it was a board that provided good performance whilst being completely stable, today we will put the AV8 up against it.
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by Veridian3 on 08/11/2004
ATI have been building a great reputation on the Intel Chipset front over the last 3 years and on that platform have arguably the best chipsets with features like onboard graphics being far ahead of the competitor’s solution. The new Radeon Xpress chipset however is designed for AMD socket 754 and 939.
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by Veridian3 on 14/07/2004
With the move to socket 939 Asus have a new board for Athlon users in the shape of the A8V. We were lucky enough to receive a review sample of the new A8V from Asus and with high hopes we built a system around it.
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by Zardon on 19/06/2004
Intel have always been recognised as being the top performing maker of chipsets at default speeds but they dont tend to offer the kind of features and adjustments found on enthusiast "overclocking" boards.
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by Veridian3 on 23/03/2004
The SK8V we reviewed previously is based on a VIA chipset the SK8N is based on the N-force 3 Pro 150 chipset. We shall take a look today at how it performs with 2 of AMD’s most recent processors, the FX51 and FX53.
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by Veridian3 on 03/03/2004
The AI7 is based on Intel’s 865PE chipset. It supports 800/533 and 400FSB Pentium 4 processors using socket 478. Additionally the board also supports Prescott processors, or will do when they are available.
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by Veridian3 on 04/01/2004
The SK8V is based on a black PCB which mixed with the yellow and blue of the various slots/connectors is very cool. The board uses VIA’s K8T800 chip which is passively cooled by a stylish blue heatsink. The Southbridge is the Via VT8327 chipset.
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by Chaos on 15/01/2003
The A7N8X is ASUS's entry into the nForce2 chipset market. It supports a Dual Channel DDR400 memory bus, 8x AGP, 6-channel Dolby Sound (SoundStorm), and the only onboard 5.1 Dolby Digital encoder available in a chipset.
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