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Athlon 64 Motherboard Triple Threat Round-Up

Posted by timothy on from the only-8-pages-to-click-through dept.

SpinnerBait writes "Soon after AMD released the Athlon 64 to the public, eager motherboard manufacturers unveiled their latest motherboards for AMD's new baby. Some are offering basic packages that boast features and performance, yet forgo the extras found in premium bundles. Other manufacturers are offering snazzy new packages with all kinds of extras and unique features. The only thing left to do is decide which one is for you. HotHardware has an article posted up, that showcases and benchmarks three top Athlon 64 motherboards, from Asus, MSI and Shuttle. These boards are looking more refined every day."

6 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. Note to self: by niko9 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nick, wait 'till your favorite distro is out (64 bit Debian) before you spend your hard earned cash. The prices will have come down a bit, the 1.0 bugs will be out and hopefully fixed, and your favorite motherboard maker (Tyan) will be out with a nice non-overclocker but extremley stabel and quiet 64 bit motherboard solution.

    Thanks.

  2. run 64bit with less than 3G memory ? by ticktack · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Non of three motherboards supports more than (max) 3G memory, what is the purpose of using 64bit cpu?

  3. From the article by 1984 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    "The Northbridge comes with passive cooling, however, the design is not the most effective for dissipating heat. We think a taller, more extruded heat sink like MSI's is more effective at wicking heat away from the chipset."

    Let's keep it scientific: did you do any measurements, or just you just reckon you have a better eye for heat dissipation than the folk at Asus?

  4. How about some more pro features? by hirschma · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I just can't help but feel that the manufacturers are missing the boat on what features should actually be present - and features that at least some folks would pay more for...

    * Faster PCI. How about PCI-X? or 66mhz/64bit? Something that lets a power users do more without saturating the bus.

    Of course, it'll be a moot point when PCI express arrives...

    * More PCI. More than one bus would be nice - even two standard PCI busses would be useful to a lot of folks.

    * More memory slots! Um, these CPUs can address more than 2/4 gigabytes. At least 6, and preferably 8 slots would be a good thing - let folks get to some really large RAM sizes inexpensively.

    At least they got gigabit right (but probably hooked to the PCI bus, not good), and Firewire (but not the new faster kind, and again, hooked to the PCI bus).

    I'd think that a properly outfitted board would be a video enthusiast's dream, or a hpc dream, or whatever. I'd expect that once MS actually ships XP 64, you'll start to see prosumer boards that address my gripes. But I'd sure like one now, price somewhere between these low-enders and higher-end "server" boards.

    Jonathan

  5. Sure. by Namarrgon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you consider a 0.5% lead in a synthetic benchmark to be "schooled", I suppose. And ignore the other 3 graphs on that page.

    --
    Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
  6. KEEP YOUR FUCKING PAWS OFF MY PS2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    why, oh why they don't they remove the most fucking stable thing in my fucking PC...

    I bet the PS2 keyboard I'm using is older than you bitch.