Computer Gaming Hardware

With the Intel giant being one of our greatest technology of our time, rolling out the Intel core 2 range and the fully dedicated core 2 quad support motherboards, with the greatest innovation in over clocking and cool features, with the low price of the DDR2 memory and buy 2GB kit for around $80 to $100, which is a bargain when including with the new DDR3 with a high price, and almost a fraction of the performance of a DDR2 and also a better North and South bridge with the ICH9R chip that can open up six SATA and one IDE connector, for those sticking with the PATA interface optical drives.

Meet the family

With the Intel range of Windows/Linux compatible motherboards (don’t worry about an Apple, it is a restrictive OS system and very hard to install it in a Intel, let alone an AMD based mobo) there is a good mature bunch of chipset range that is available to Intel there is the 9-series like the 965P and the 965X that is intentionally built for Pentium and Intel IVVI processors that only support the 800 to 1066 MHz FSB, but the introduction of the Intel core 2 Duo, they have some exceptions in including it in the line up.

Next, it’s his big daddy the P3 and X3-series motherboards, and this is the defacto board that support all Intel Pentium and to the newer Intel core 2 Duo with a bus frequency of 1333MHz and fully supports Quad core CPU’s, and one I love dear, and the greatest one they made it simple and elegant with good stable and over-clockable interface with the extreme mobo in mind and crossfire enable boards like the P and the X series, more noticeably the X38 is a full native PCI-express X16 in each slot, you can enable crossfire but the speed is halved in each, so X8 each video card, which is a default setting in the board.

Next with the new gen-P4 series and the X4 series that in some regards as the little brother to the 3 series, while not a subordinate to the 3 series but it give a new features in Intel like the support on DDR3, while now is not a good choice but in a few months when the price comes down and affordable, it will be a great deal of performance, but for now stick to the DDR2 interface, but still willing to Spend, DDR3 is a good investment. With also the native bandwidth in both P45 and the X48 on X16 lanes in each, a good placement when ATI has its rounds with NVIDIA on the graphics card war with the new 4870 X2 series, which is now the fastest and the hottest (with the record of heating up to 80 degrees after the boot time!!) card ever, with the good exception with the P45.

Conclusion

Well a good round with Intel, well I like to say with a few notes, for those in a budget, try saving up with the P35 boards (go for a gigabyte for a cheaper version without sacrifice of performance or ASUS for peripherals and stability in over clocking) don’t; even opt for a X series they are more on lunatics with money in their hands, but for those people in a sense of money and performance choose a P45 with DDR2 support for the backward compatibility in which ASUS brought to their range, it is a great choice when building a mid-1000 to 2000 dollar mark system.