Welcome to another installment of our price guides. A few
weeks ago, we took a look at CPU, memory, motherboards and video cards. This
week we are just going to look at Motherboards and Video Cards, since they are the most volatile markets right now.
As always, feel free to check out or RealTime Pricing
Engine. Since we rely on our own bots to retrieve prices and shipping
information, expect our engine to be more accurate than PriceWatch, DealTime,
BizRate or anything else. If you would like to check out a quick
introduction on how the engine works, read last month's article on the price
engine introduction.
Without further delay, let’s take a quick look at what’s
going on in the world of motherboards and video cards!
In our last article, we made a few comments about nForce2
Ultra 400, KT600 and beyond. nForce2 Ultra 400 took very little time to phase
into the market, as virtually every manufacturer of the original nForce2 line
had anticipated a chipset 'upgrade' (also, electrically the nForce2 Ultra 400
and nForce2 are almost identical). KT600 boards are still not available, but
distribution channels should begin to receive them anytime soon.
Perhaps one of the most subtle and curious motherboard tales
is Gigabyte. We were a little surprised when Gigabyte did not produce an
nForce or nForce2 motherboard several months ago. However, since Gigabyte has
been an active supporter of ATI’s Radeon series with its own “Maya” line,
perhaps bad blood between NVIDIA and ATI prohibited Gigabyte from using NVIDIA’s
nForce2 chipsets in their motherboards. Our sources say that Gigabyte is
actively producing new video cards based on Radeon 9800 and Radeon 9600, so it
looks like any indifferences between Gigabyte, ATI and NVIDIA have
disappeared. Keep in mind, Gigabyte is the only company that produces
products for both ATI and NVIDIA.
As for individual motherboard releases, the DFI nForce2
LanParty motherboard has stirred a large bit of hype (but is still unavailable until June 20 with some exceptions). Epox, MSI, Chaintech and ASUS all have new
offerings on the Ultra 400 chipset that are fairly widely available.
This editor still feels kind of cheated on the whole 400MHz
FSB issue. We still have to question whether or not 400MHz FSB is entirely
useful at all. Had AMD re-released its older processor lines on 400MHz, then perhaps
we could justify the $20 hike in motherboard prices and a new chipset race.
However, there is still only one AMD CPU capable of 400MHz, and the Athlon64
full release is only a few months away. If you decide to go with the AMD solution,
we really don’t see any reason to jump on the 400MHz bandwagon and pay through
the nose right now. (Edit: Our forum users have informed me that the
3000+ Barton is now becoming available at 400MHz FSB, although it costs more than the
3200+ 400MHz Barton.)
While the AMD scene might be slightly confusing right now,
the Intel side of things appears to be clearly the opposite. Intel’s i865PE
chipset was an amazing success, and if you need proof just check out Evan’s
20-way i865PE/i875P roundup. We were very pleased to see that the
lower cost i865PE boards actually outperformed many of the i875P solutions.
Remember, check out our RealTime Price Engine to
see these prices in real time.
The Abit IS7 got our Gold Editors Choice in the last motherboard
roundup. From a performance and price standpoint, it seems very well
deserved. Our RealTime Price Engine lists the IS7 around $109 shipped, which
makes it the lowest priced i865PE board. The performance tests consistently
put the motherboard at or above ASUS’s P4P800, as well. Not too often to we
find such a diamond in the rough when it comes to motherboards. If you are in
the market for a new Intel board, the IS7 is the way to go.
If the IS7 is not your cup of tea, there are several good
performers out there as well. The Albatron PX865 Pro II offers solid
performance at a low price, while the ASUS P4P800 Deluxe performs exceptionally
with a $145 price tag.
Again we don’t really see much competition from SIS and even
other Intel chipsets. The i875P proved to be a fairly lackluster chipset
compared to the i865, and Granite Bay is almost worthless. SIS’s 655FX and
648FX have not hit many retail channels and still don’t match up to the i865PE
anyway.
The ATI Radeon 9800’s have hit the distribution and retail
channels, but still at the $383 mark. The 256MB variants actually retail over
$500 right now, and that is a ridiculous amount to pay for a video card. What
does seem incredibly surprising is the price of Sapphire 9700 Pro AIW cards.
If you haven’t checked out our review from a few months ago,
the Radeon 9700 AIW line really performed to its full potential. We are in a
slightly intermittent period where ATI is phasing out its 9700 line in favor of
the 9800 line, but also preserving the 9700 AIW line in preparation for the
9800 AIW release. As a result, prices on Sapphire and ATI 9700 AIW cards have plummeted.
You will still pay as much as $290 for this card, but considering the Sapphire
9700 Pro (non-AIW) retails for $265, the extra $25 is money well spent.
Edit: Sorry about the original poor prices. The bot picked up 2 refurbed products.
Other interesting developments include the painfully slow
release of the 9600 Pro line. The 9500 Pro line is also in that replacement
period where 9500 Radeons will start to cost more than 9600’s. The 8 rendering
pipelines (as compared to 4 on the 9600 Pro) give Radeon 9500 a slight edge at
a slower clock speed of 275MHz. Basically, our advice is to jump all over the
9500 Pro while it’s still available, because the (lower performance) 9600 Pro
will fill its shoes quickly when supply runs out.
The recent news of Trident and SIS to merge their graphics
divisions seems to have not affected ATI or NVIDIA. It looks like prices have
bottomed out on the 5200 line, so don’t expect this card to move much in
price. Don’t be fooled by the FX 5200 misnomer; this card is really the
GeForceFX MX. There really is not much performance behind this card and it
will have trouble keeping up with a good Ti4200.
The GeForceFX 5600 continues to provide the best performance
/ price ratio in our opinion. GeForceFX 5800 cards are still being phased out
and 5900 (ultra) video cards have not even hit the distribution channel yet.
We haven’t seen many benchmarks, but the FX 5600 Ultra and the ATI 9600 Pro perform similarly.
We recommend the ATI 9600 Pro over the FX 5600 even if it costs just a few
bucks more.
Stay tuned next week for another installment of the guides
and more new products than you can shake a stick at (including some 5600 Ultra variants)!
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