ECS G31T-M7

MB Socket 775 ECS iG31 Express(mATX,1333 MHz,2 DDR2 SDR,PCIe x16,SB,SVGA,LAN 10/100,Serial ATA II/300,U100,4xUSB2.0,45nm CPUs support)

R499

ECS G41T-M

MB Socket 775 ECS iG41 Express(mATX,1333 MHz,2 DDR2 SDR,PCIe x16,SB,iGMA X4500,LAN 10/100,Serial ATA II/300,U100,4xUSB2.0,45nm CPUs support)

R499

ECS P45T-AD3

MB Socket 775 ECS iP45 Express(ATX,1333 MHz,4 DDR3 1600 SDR,Dual PCIe x16,SB,1GbitLAN,SATA2 x6,6xUSB2.0,45nm CPUs support)

R1099

ECS GEFORCE6100PM-M2

MB Socket AM2+ ECS GeForce 6100/nForce 430(mATX,2000 MHz,2 DDR2 SDR,PCIe x16,SB,SVGA,LAN 10/100,Serial ATA II/300-RAID,U133,4xUSB2.0)

R499

ECS A790GXM-AD3

MB Socket AM3 ECS AMD 790GX(ATX,5200 MHz,4 DDR3 SDR,SB,Dual GbitLAN,Serial ATA II/300-RAID,Serial ATA II/300,U100,6xUSB2.0)ret

R1099

Which motherboard to choose

Even though a when processor has a maximum speed (frequency) of 3GHz (3000Mega Hertz), the effective data transfer rate of the processor is limited to the speed (frequency) of the motherboard's Front Side Bus.

Example: for office use, a 400Mhz FSB is okay. For gamers, you might want to opt for a FSB of 1000 or faster. But here's why geeks were freaking about AMD systems: The chipsets on AMD motherboards allow the RAM bus to run at a different speed from the processor bus. AMD then introduced a technology called HyperTransport, which integrated the memory controller in the CPU itself, thus eliminating the Front Side Bus (FSB). The PC architecture was also significantly changed with the HyperTransport Graphics Tunnel replacing the North Bridge and the HyperTransport I/O Bus Tunnel replacing the South Bridge. With HyperTransport, data is sent in packets rather by reserving bandwidth streams. This results in higher throughputs.

Does that make AMD faster? No, just more efficient on utilizing the available processing power o the CPU, motherboard and RAM.

So, to answer the question: "Which motherboard to choose?" AMD systems are very efficient in all respects, and in most respects cheaper too. They'll do just fine for home and office use. And so will the Intel Celeron systems. But hardcore gamers might want to take a look at the Core 2 Duo systems. That is, until AMD launch their quad processor somewhere in 2007.

Please note:
AMD Socket 754 and Socket 939 motherboards can't accept DDR2 RAM due to the integrated memory controller in the CPU. AMDs new M2 motherboards can take DDR2 RAM.