Motherboard Gigabyte S775

* Revolution energy saving design with DES advanced featuring hardware based dynamic 6-Gear switching
* Supports 45nm Intel
* Dual channel DDR2 1200 for remarkable system performance
* 2 PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphic interface plus PCI-E 2.0 x4 with CrossFireX support for ultimate graphics performance
* Diagnostic LED and ACPI LEDs on board to display system and power status
* 2 Gigabit Ethernet LAN with teaming functionality
* Supports Dolby home theater
* Dual BIOS solution gives a multiple security to the system
* Power /reset /Clr CMOS onboard button for easily operation on the workbench
* Hardware over voltage control IC provides more voltage control options on CPU, north bridge and memory
* Blu-ray playback outputs supported by high quality 106dB SNR ALC889A HD audio

Motherboard 'XFX - 780i SLI'

These support the latest PCI-E 2.0 specifications and, together with the single x16 PCI-E slot supported by the 780i SLI MCP (which is only PCI-E 1.0), allow the 780SLI to provide full-speed triple SLI. That's three high-speed graphics cards in one machine, if you have deep enough pockets.

One of the first boards to use the new chipset is the nattily named 780i SLI (MB-N780-ISH9) from XFX. Better known for its range of fast graphics cards, XFX has a small but steadily growing range of motherboards, all based around Nvidia chipsets.

As with all 780i SLI boards, it supports all Intel's Socket 775 processors, including the latest 45nm Penryns with front side bus speeds up to 1333MHz, and provides four DIMM slots which support up to 8GB of DDR2-800 memory.

Built on a black PCB, the 780i SLI is well laid out. The problems you may come across occur if you want to access the two USB headers (which are close to the x16 PCI-E slots): if you have gone down the triple SLI route, and if you have fat fingers, you may find yourself swearing at the 8-pin power connector which is tucked up tight against the MOSFET cooler.

As with so many high-end boards produced these days, the chipset is passively cooled, but unlike the majority with their extravagant copper designs, the design on the 780i is almost minimalist, with simple flattened pipework connecting both chipset bridges while a standard single pipe connects the passive MOSFET heatsink to the cooler on the 780MCP.

Some thought has gone into the main cooler, which is larger than the one on the 680i as it has to cool the nForce 200 chip. Angled backwards, it gives plenty of space around the CPU socket, and even if you use the provided cooling fan to give the chipset more cooling (which, thinking about it, you should, as this chipset gets very hot), there is still room to manoeuvre a third-party CPU cooler in place.

All three x16 PCI-E ports are coloured bright green and run at full x16 speed even in triple SLI mode. The reason for the extra long SLI connector in the box becomes apparent when you realise that for standard SLI mode, you use the first and third slots which are a fair distance apart.

Apart from these three slots there are also two standard PCI slots and a single x1 PCI slot, while both 7.1 audio and dual Gigabit LAN are integrated into the board. There are six SATA ports, two of which are edge-mounted and sit at ninety degrees to the motherboard, making for tidier cable runs, and all can be used to build 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 RAID arrays.

As this is a board aimed at enthusiasts, it comes as no surprise to see both power and reset switches on the board itself along with a POST LED to show visually any BIOS codes that the board may be hanging on.

The board comes with an impressive bundle of bits in the box: along with both the SLI connectors there are six SATA cables, single rounded ATA and floppy cables, a couple of 4-pin Molex to SATA power cables, a Firewire 400 backplate, a USB backplate with four ports and a rather good printed manual.
Comparing prices of 'XFX 780i SLI'

Motherboard 'Abit - I-N73HD '

Built on a startling orange PCB, the I-N73HD uses Nvidia's GeForce 7100 / nForce 630i single-chip chipset solution, which is hidden under a small passive heatsink. The chipset supports Intel's Socket 775 range of processors, with 1,333, 1,066 and 800MHz FSB speeds, including the latest 45nm CPUs.

As the chipset is a single-chip solution there is plenty of space around the components; in fact so much space that it's a little disappointing to find only two DIMM slots, as it looks like there is enough room on the board for another two. But given the board's price point and intended use it's understandable why there are only two slots. Anyway, they can support up to 4GB of DDR-800 (PC2-6400) memory.


The integrated 7100 graphics has a core clock that runs at 600MHz and shares anything from 64MB up to a maximum of 256MB of system memory. It supports both DirectX 9 and Shader model 3.0 but, as you might expect from an integrated graphics solution, the gaming performance isn't that great, scoring just over 1,000 in PCMark05 and just over 500 in 3DMark06.

But that isn't the point of a board like this; it's all about watching movies and videos, and for this the integrated GeForce 7100 is perfectly adequate. However, should you want some gaming flexibility there is a single x16 PCI-E slot (1.0 spec) so you can add in a dedicated graphics card.

Along with the graphics slot there are two standard PCI slots and a single x1 PCI-E slot which you could use for a TV card. The four SATA 3.0Gbps ports are mounted close to the bottom of the board. But one of the main reasons the I-N73HD makes a good base for an HTPC or media center PC is to be found on the rear I/O panel, namely an HDMI port which has a signal transfer rate of up to 5GBps.

Joining the HDMI port on the back panel are four USB 2.0 ports, six audio and a single optical S/PDIF ports for the integrated 7.1 audio controlled by a Realtek ALC888 chip. There's also a LAN port that connects to the onboard Gigabit Ethernet controller, and you get a standard D-Sub VGA port (but no DVI port), a FireWire port and two PS/2 ports.

Motherboard Asus - M3N-HT

Nvidia's HybridSLI consists of two technologies - HybridPower and GeForce Boost - both of which are only available under Windows Vista. The power-saving HybridPower works by turning off the dedicated graphics card when you're not playing games and dynamically switching in the onboard GeForce 8 series graphics. GeForce Boost, meanwhile, allows the graphics core of a dedicated card and the core of the integrated graphics to be used in SLI mode.

Asus's M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe supports both AM2 and AM2+ AMD processors. To get the best out of the board you really need to use a Phenom processor, as this allows you to get the full benefit of the HyperTransport 3.0 interface which is theoretically 10,400MBps (but current Phenoms work at the lower end of the HT 3.0 specifications, at 7,200MBps).

ATX Long Life Motherboard for Pentium IV Socket 478

* Socket 478 for Pentium IV & Celeron
* Intel® 865G chipset
* Fast 533/800 MHz front side bus
* Four DDR memory slots
* 8X AGP slot
* On-board Gigabit LAN & audio, IDE & SATA
* 8-USB 2.0 ports (4 by pin header)
* 5-PCI & 2-ISA slots (one shared)

Core 2 Quad & Core 2 Duo Motherboard New

* Supports Intel Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo & Pentium D LGA775 processors 533/800/1066 FSB
* 4 x 240-pin DDR2 533/667/800 MHz RAM up to 8 GB
* Intel Q965 & ICH8DO chipset
* Built-in Intel Extreme GMA 3000 video (up to 256 MB shared RAM)
* 6 X SATA II interface with 300 MB/s transfer rate
* Supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10
* 2 x Intel 82573L Gigabit Ethernet
* Realtek ALC888 high defination audio
* 1 x PCI-Express X16, 1 x PCI-Express X4, 1 x mini-PCI, 4 x PCI & 2-ISA slots
* 4 x USB 2.0 ports