CPUs & Motherboards

AMD 780G: Best Ever Integrated Mainstream Chipset? A close look at AMD's DX10 IGP chipset through the amazingly full-featured Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H micro-ATX board along with a new speed-bumped (2.5 GHz) 45W AMD A64 X2 processor, the 4850e.

Micro-ATX mainboards were once considered minimalist devices for simple office machines, but this notion is rapidly being challenged, no more so than by this new Intel G35 chipset based P5E-VM HDMI from Asus. It includes a huge array of features normally found on premium ATX boards, a BIOS with liberal frequency and voltage adjustments, and solid-state capacitors. Is it the most complete, well-rounded mATX board ever?

The DG33TL is a micro-ATX model equipped with the fairly recent G33 Express chipset in Intel's media series of motherboards. It's on our test bench as we continue to seek out new boards with good integrated graphics and features suitable for home theater PCs.

The D201GLY turned heads when it appeared in May this year. An embedded ULV Celeron 215 processor on a mini-ITX board from Intel at a rock-bottom price was definitely worthy of notice. The just-released D201GLY2 improves the board with two SATA channels and lower power draw with a Celeron 220. We examine the new board in detail and assess its significance in the mini-ITX world, in the trend towards smaller and cheaper, and in the emerging markets.

MicroATX boards usually offer excellent value, but the Asus M2A-VM HDMI offers many features normally found on premium boards: RAID, FireWire, and gigabit ethernet. Asus also provides S/PDIF audio, displays can be connected via HDCP-compliant HDMI, DVI, VGA, component, S-Video, and even composite out. The 690G chipset also supports SurroundView, which allows the Radeon X1250 graphics chip to operate in tandem with a dedicated video card to provide four displays at once.

Albatron has released the KI690-AM2 for AMD AM2 processors to bring high performance computing and Mini-ITX together. We run the wee 690 chipset board through a bank of tests to show what you can expect in a HTPC setup.

Gigabyte has a long history of producing affordable, yet feature-packed motherboards. We examine the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, an ATX motherboard designed for Intel Core 2 Duo and Quad processors. The DS3 is now on its third official revision so it's likely any major quirks or bugs have been worked out. Gigabyte has also provided a steady stream of BIOS updates to fix minor issues and improve overall performance. How suitable is it for the quiet PC enthusiast?

From time to time we run across products that appear to be made for each other. That seemed to be the case with AOpen's mini-ITX i945GTt-VFA motherboard and Silverstone's mini-ITX LC-12 case to go with it. Both feature fanless, DC-based power delivery and a tiny form factor that just begs to be put on show. Alas, it was not a match made in IT heaven. How did this match go bad?

The i975Xa-YDG is AOpen's most ambitious MoDT motherboard, designed for Intel Core Solo/Duo with ATI Crossfire dual graphics card capability and a host of performance oriented features. It also has a standard socket 478 heatsink retention bracket, which means big, quiet aftermarket performance heatsinks can be used. Is this a perfect motherboard for the green-conscious, anti-noise gamer?

VIA has always had a great idea with their extremely low power processors. Their latest EPIA motherboard has an embedded 1.2 GHz processor with a 7.5W thermal envelope. It's 100% passive, updated to run with DDR2, and comes with a slew of onboard A/V connections. Is this enough to make up for the shortcomings in performance that VIA's processors have always suffered? Our assessment, after lab tests and a lengthy in-home trial.

The last time we looked at a mainboard with support for two full bandwidth 16x PCI Express slots, the cost was high power consumption. The ASUS A8R32-MVP Deluxe, probably the last of the high end 939 boards now that AM2 is just about here, also features high PCIe bandwidth, but it uses ATI's single chip solution — CrossFire Xpress 3200 — instead of nVidia's nForce SLI x16 chipset. Does this board fare any better in the low power department? The small, passive heatsinks suggest that it may.

It began as a follow-up to Turion 64 on the Desktop article, posted in mid-February. But then, the piece ballooned into something more ambitious, into an attempt to answer the question, "What is the best power efficiency achievable with current AMD and Intel processors that can be used on a desktop PC?" In the process, we ended up examining more than 15 processors in half a dozen family groups on six different test platforms, and took a stream of power measurements that kept our heads spinning for a couple of weeks. We have some answers. They comprise a snapshot of the fast-changing processor scene, taken from a particular angle, at this point in time.

Our review examines AOpen's first full-sized Pentium M board , which aims at the high performance media PC market. (Particularly the Japanese media PC market.) Based on the i915G chipset, this board features no fewer than five video outputs, support for dual channel DDR2, and Azalia 7.1 channel on-board audio. Small noisy heatsinks and some odd issues...

It seemed to take forever, but our article on running AMD's mobile 64-bit CPUs on socket 754 desktop boards is finally done. We examine the power efficiency, cost and implementation of Turion 64 ML44, ML40, MT40 and MT34 models, along side Athlon 64-3200+ and Intel Pentium M 770 CPUs. It's a complicated, sprawling piece, far from being the last word on the topic (of Turion 64 on the desktop), but a good intro and overview.

It's arguably the most full-featured single CPU desktop motherboard ever produced. It also happens to be cooled with heatpipes and features a complex chipset configuration. We put the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe under the microscopes in the SPCR lab to come up with a thorough thermal / power profile of this impressive motherboard.