PC Motherboard And Chipset Reviews And News
There's nobody quite like Mom and when it comes to performance desktop computers or business class workhorse machines, motherboards are always what bring the computing family together. Motherboards house all PC components from the processor, to memory and storage. Here you'll find our coverage on big motherboard brands and products from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, ASRock and many more, along with the chipsets from AMD and Intel that power the PC Master Race.
The MSI XPower series of motherboards is clearly designed to curry favor with overclocking enthusiasts and the high-end gamers Asus has targeted with its Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand. The XPower packs full support for all the latest buzzwords and capabilities, but MSI is also claiming to offer certain unique features that other manufacturers...
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When we published our comprehensive P55 motherboard roundup back in early April, one of the boards we discussed and really liked was the Asus P7P55D Deluxe. At $220, that particular board was priced significantly higher than some of the other LGA1156 options we considered. Fast forward a few months and we've got the LGA1156-based P7P55D-E...
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Every once in a while a product comes along that really gets us worked into a frenzy. Typically, the latest and greatest processors and graphics cards generate a lot of buzz around here, but some other components aren’t always as enticing for one reason or another, like motherboards for example. Don’t get us wrong, we love a great...
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The past few years have been very kind to Gigabyte; the company's shipments have increased to the point that it's now approximately tied with Asus in terms of volume shipments. Part of the reason for the company's good fortune is its decision to aggressively align its higher-end motherboards, both in terms of price and available features....
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Some might say that there has never been a better time to be a PC enthusiast. Compelling new products fighting for our attention abound, as the computer hardware scene is bursting at the seams with upgrade options. For example, it wasn't long ago that AMD launched the world's first DX11 videocard and now the company features a full lineup...
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It has been quite a while since AMD launched a new high-end desktop chipset. The 790FX has been riding high at the top of AMD's line-up for over two years now. It has been paired to newer Southbridge chips and AMD did follow up with the 790GX about a year and half ago, but for all intents and purposes AMD's flagship desktop chipset has remained...
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Although the Core i7 and X58 combo is a proven performance leader, there are still plenty of Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad CPUs out there in the wild. The Core 2 is still a very capable processor with many models costing less than half the price the cheapest Core i7 processor, the Core i7 920. Thus, systems based...
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With today's launch of their new "Lynnfield" based Core i5 and i7 800 series processors, and the accompanying P55 Express chipset, Intel's current flagship CPU microarchitecture--codenamed Nehalem--finally trickles its way down into the mainstream computing segment. Since Nehalem first landed on the desktop in the form of the Core i7 line...
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As details of upcoming Lynnfield processors and P55 chipset-based motherboards hit the scene, there is a growing buzz within the industry about the effects of bringing Nehalem down into the mainstream market segments. While X58 and Core i7 performance dominates, complete system pricing has kept some average consumers looking to upgrade...
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For the last several years AMD has delivered a series of solid, cost-effective mainstream chipsets with integrated graphics. First with the original 690G which offered a wealth of features and surprisingly competent IGP performance. Then later with the 780G and 790GX chipsets, which added a little more graphics horspower and IGP features,...
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Thanks largely to all of the attention surrounding the Intel Atom platform and its alternatives like the Via Nano and NVIDIA Ion, small form factor (SFF) systems have been generating tech news in a big way for the past half year. While tiny toaster-sized machines have been relevant for some time, as proven by the continued success of...
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Nearly every motherboard manufacturer on the market today makes at least one line of products for the "enthusiast" market. Typically, these motherboards are a bit flashier, offer better cooling, enhanced overclocking, more features and are priced significantly higher than their mainstream variants. In the majority of cases, these boards are...
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The latest socket AM3 compatible Phenom II processors have been available for several weeks now and they had proven in our initial coverage to be excellent chips, a notable improvement over their predecessors in several respects, including overclocking and in their support for higher clocked DDR3 memory. Thanks to the Phenom...
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Many positive commentaries have been written about Intel's current flagship Core i7 processors and its companion X58 Express chipset, due to the solid performance gains offered by the platform. In addition to the increased performance offered by Core i7 processors though, the X58 chipset also brings with it native...
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When we think about what is perhaps the one draw-back that enthusiasts and gamers could point to with respect to an Intel chipset-based motherboard, historically, it was lack of NVIDIA SLI multi-GPU support. Though you could drop more than one AMD ATI Radeon-based graphics card into a P45, X38 or X48-chipset based motherboard,...
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If the recent release of Intel's X58 chipset has taught us anything, it's that change can be good. In our first two forays with these new boards and Intel's Core i7 processor, we've been firmly impressed by the performance gains seen over legacy Core 2 architectures, much less AMD's recent advancements and new offerings. Now, with...
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AMD has been fighting an uphill battle on two fronts for the last few years. For a time, fierce competition from NVIDIA, coupled with some of their own problems executing, put the ATI graphics division in a deep hole. And ever since the introduction of the original Core 2 processors, and more recently the Core i7, AMD's processor division...
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Intel's recent launch of the Core i7 processor and its accompanying chipset platform, was met with plenty of buzz and splash, due not only to the product's architectural enhancements but also its performance gains. However, the new serially enabled Core i7 also brought fairly significant platform changes as...
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Here at HotHardware, we have a special place in our hearts for companies that transcend the norm in order to better appeal to the small, niche group of hardware fanatics that we like to call enthusiasts. The end result often times is that new design innovations are also introduced to the mainstream, due in part to this focus on the technophile's...
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Home PCs have reached a new plateau recently with the much heralded release of the Core i7 processor from Intel, which goes hand-in-hand with the X58 Express chipset and the motherboards built upon it. Although the Core i7 does borrow technology from earlier CPUs, there are some major changes including placing all four cores...
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A few months back, Intel released the P45 Chipset -- at the time it was considered to be their mainstream offering, playing second fiddle to the X48 Express. With official support of a 1333MHz FSB, PCI-E 2.0, ATI CrossFire, and support for both DDR2 and DDR3 memory, there's a lot of roads to go down with the...
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With all of the recent hoopla surrounding Intel and NVIDIA as of late, today's announcement may come as a bit of a surprise to many of you. To say that there has been some tension between Intel and NVIDIA lately would certainly be putting it mildly. But the fact of the matter is, for now at least, the two companies share a somewhat symbiotic...
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