News

MSI P7N2 Diamond @ TweakTown

“So far we have had the ZOTAC board cross us; now it’s time for MSI, one of the biggest motherboard makers in Taiwan, and one of the biggest presences here in Australia to have its time in the sun. Today we have been given the P7N2 Diamond motherboard. This baby is aimed at being the top gun of all 790i SLI boards out there. While that’s a good aim, does it perform? – Let’s see.”

ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution @ Big Bruin

“In the end the ASUS P5E64 WS Evolution X48 ATX motherboard wound up being just about what I had hoped it would be… A high end motherboard equally well suited for serving in a workstation and a gaming rig. With all of the performance features, its slick styling, and the ample bundle of accessories, it is almost like someone at ASUS paid close attention to their market research!”

MSI P45 Diamond @ TBreak

“Today. We take a look on MSI’s upcoming P45 Diamond motherboard that is equipped with Intel latest EagleLake chipset aka P45. The new chipset brings official support for 1333MHz FSB along with the option to use DDR3-1333MHz. We say option as the chipset also supports DDR2-800MHz and the motherboard manufacturer can decide which way to go.”

ASUS Rampage Formula @ OC Club

“This motherboard was a breeze to overclock. To OC this board, I attempted to get the highest Front Side Bus that I could. After many different settings, the highest I could get stable was 470×7. This motherboard booted up at 500×7 easily, but Windows didn’t like that overclock. I could get into Vista with 485×7, but it wasn’t stable enough to run benchmarks.”

Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 @ Neoseeker

“I was able to run stably at 9.5×475, which is actually a pretty good result – however the memory read, write, bandwidth and latency results are not as good as I’d expect; frankly this may very well be a matter of “too conservative” values for some of the default memory timings, or it could be a board layout issue requiring slower timings; I don’t know what the cause is, however the memory performance of the board is definitely a limiting factor in the results obtained from the board.”

ASUS Striker II Extreme @ OC Club

“The Striker II Extreme can overclock, but unfortunately, not quite to the level I have achieved on several other boards with this processor. Given the dearth of settings in the BIOS, it does take time to find a nice stable overclock. Pretty much every voltage and many of the memory sub-timings needed to be tweaked for maximum performance.”

Biostar TF8200 A2+ @ OCIA

“Today I have for review a new motherboard model from Biostar, the TF8200 A2+. This board is part of Biostar’s TForce lineup, which are upscale versions of their regular motherboard series, featuring better components and more options for enthusiasts and overclockers. The TF8200 A2+ uses the GeForce 8200 design, part of nVidia’s most recent release of 8000 and 700 series chipsets for AMD.”

ECS A780GM-A @ TweakTown

“AMD’s progress of late has been rather slow. With Phenom being initially delayed due to poor clocking, and then being bitten by the TLB bug in its B2 stepping core, AMD’s Phenom has been a late bloomer. Although it has now come out of its shell, it’s still not able to kick Intel off the performance ladder.”

Gigabyte MA-790FX-DS5 @ Motherboards.org

“AMD has made the 790FX chipset their high-end chipset and as such, the Gigabyte MA-790FX-DS5 is designed to work with the newest Phenom B3 CPUs. Gigabyte has done an outstanding job outfitting this card with the features that you need and the performance to boot. The inclusion of features like 8 SATA ports and 2 Firewire ports make this board ideal for the HT enthusiast needing those features.”

ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe @ Au-Ja!

“NVIDIA waited a long time before releasing a new premium chipset for AMDs AM2+ plattform and the Phenom CPUs. And now the nForce 780a SLI is here and it’s unlike every other chipset we’ve ever seen before. NVIDIA combined an IPG, a typical feature of low cost motherboards, with Tri-SLI, a high end feature for enthusiasts.”