News

Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 @ Motherboards.org

“Performance on the QX9770 was exemplary, easily the fastest CPU or system I have ever tested with the exception being the dual QX9775 SkullTrail system which is faster, but of course that is with two CPUs that are virtually identical to the single QX9770 here. The QX9770 easily beats the Phenom X4 9850 CPU, but the two CPUs are in completely different price leagues and not a fair comparison as the person wanting a QX9770 will not likely look at an AMD CPU for their high-end computer.”

ECS GF8200A @ Guru3D

“See, this mainboard comes with Hybrid graphics, (integrated GeForce 8200), VGA output, HDMI output, HD audio integrated, Gigabit Ethernet, PCI-Express 2.0, Serial ATA (RAID 0,1,10) DDR2 memory up-to 1066 MHz and all that for a price hovering at roughly 70 bucks! That’s just electrifying. Say you want to build a HTPC capable of decoding 1080P Blu-Ray. Well, purchase this mainboard, slap some memory on it and get a budget processor.”

Biostar TF7150U-M7 @ OC Online

“The Biostar T-Series has been seen around Overclockers Online and has always performed well. In this review, we will be looking at one of the newer members of the T-Series, the TF7150U-M7 which features an integrated NVIDIA GeForce 7150 video chip on the nForce 630i platform for Intel LGA775 processors.”

MSI K9A2 Platinum @ Motherboards.org

“MSI has done a wonderful job with their K9A2 Platinum motherboard. The performance is higher than the last AMD motherboard we did the Gigabyte GA-M69GM-S2H motherboard back in September. The ability to do Quadfire (Four ATI cards in Crossfire) is excellent. The minor issue with the motherboard utility aside and the problem with setting up RAID aside, this was a joy to work with.”

Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 @ TechGage

“Building a new machine and want DDR3 support? Then the X48T-DQ6 should be up for consideration. It offers great performance, very stable high overclocks (500MHz) and lots of connectivity, including a full eight USB ports at the back. The layout is not ideal, but the board still proves good overall.”

NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI Round-Up @ Hot Hardware

“Early this year while NVIDIA outlined their plans to mix things up at the high-end of their AMD chipset line-up with the IGP-equipped nForce 780a SLI, but it has taken quite a bit of time to bring that product to market. Today though, we present to you three nForce 780a SLI-based motherboards (two from Asus and one from MSI), that are sure to pique the interest of all of the AMD fans out there.”

MSI P7N Diamond @ OC Club

“With the positive results I achieved with on the last 780i board I tested still fresh in my mind, I was looking forward to pushing the MSI P7N Diamond to the absolute limit. Unfortunately, the limit came rather quickly. I tried using the official BIOS and two of the available beta releases, and found that my overclocking efforts were severely hampered by an inability to lower the multiplier on my Q6600 processor.”

ASUS M3N-HT 780a SLi @ OC Club

“The ASUS M3N-HT has many upgradable options such as the ability to run triple SLi if you have the cards available, or Dual SLi if you do not want to spend that much on GPUs. The temperature test with the Mempipe was not the greatest drop in temperature, but when a user is overclocking, every degree is a help to get the maximum out of his system. The Express Gate feature is a noble idea with a wealth of uses, especially if you need to get online to get a driver when you cannot get Windows to operate.”

Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 @ Guru3D

“The GA-X48-DQ6 mainboard include a Quad BIOS, no less than 8 SATA devices can be connected, you’ll have eight USB 2.0 connectors on the rear, as stated earlier on, two PCI-Express gen 2.0 ports. Also when you first glimpse at the mainboard you’ll notice some subtleties, the first is that Gigabyte is trying to tackle heat in an original manner, and they are doing a nice job with that.”

Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 @ Bjorn3D

“GIGABYTE makes two versions of this board utilizing Intel’s X48 chipset. The X48 which is a DDR2 variant and the X48T which is the DDR3 version that we will be covering today. The X48 brings minimal changes to the chipset when compared to the X38 and the only tangible difference should be more overclocking headroom.”