Hi,
These are the results from testing for each category and are based on a combination of price, performance, options, and support. I would like to stress that we really did not have a bad board or one that would not be worthy of purchasing depending upon your needs or situation although the Intel VIA boards were clearly a step behind. While performance was very close between all of the AM2 boards, it was obvious that the NVIDIA 6100/6150 AM2 boards were a little better at overclocking although the top two 690G boards have come on strong if that is important to you. I personally came to the conclusion that buying a 6000+ or 5600+ at the new prices was a smarter decision than buying a 3800+ or 4200+ and going through the headache of overclocking and stressing the rest of the system. I provided some Cliff Notes for each group.
AM2-
AMD690G-
1. Biostar (best overall features, performance, pricing, support, limited fan control is a killer)
2. Sapphire (close but that x1 PCI-E location was a killer)
3. ASUS (HDMI version, very solid performance, great features, limited OC)
4. MSI (great base board, limited BIOS options, solid performance, pricing is starting to reflect it being a base board)
WildCard - Jetway, Foxconn, Gigabyte 690 boards arrived today, understand from early reports that the ECS board is looking strong as well)
Thoughts - All of the boards performed very well, all were solid and consistent, latest Vista drivers helped tremendously, still having a few rough spots with 1080P playback, overall probably one of the better chipsets to buy in the uATX market, especially considering the AM2 pricing and performance for the dollar. (This comes from a long time Intel user who even drank the i850 / RAMBUS Kool-Aid).
NV6100/6150
1. abit NF-M2 Nview (top overclocking/performance, very good features, mature board)
1.5 Biostar TForce 6100 (excellent performance, stability, features, OC behind abit)
2.5 DFI C51PV-M2/G (really nice board overall, AC97 sound is a joke though, still asking DFI why on that one)
3. ASUS M2N-MX/M2NPV-VM (toss up, depends on feature needs)
4. MSI K9VGM-V, Foxconn K8M890M2MA, ASUS M2V-MX (all of the VIA boards scored very well from an overall viewpoint, very solid performance, if onboard GPU had been a little stronger, price to performance would have led the way in the AM2 roundup)
Wild Card - Foxconn and MSI Quadro 210S boards arrived late last week, both are excellent boards, high quality, and probably will wind up in the number 2 spot.
Thoughts - The most mature group, really did not have any issues to speak of, even after two years on the market, these chipsets are still going strong.
NV7050-
1. Biostar TForce TF7050-M2 (what else can we say, it is the only 7050 board in the labs now) Performance is about 2% better than the 6100/6150 boards in certain applications like encoding and newer games, main benefits are features like native HDMI, newer driver support, and reasonable costs. More 7050 boards are on their way, a weird rollout, NDA has been moved several times, product announcements are not timely, and there seems to be a lack of interest by the suppliers in adopting this solution quickly.
SIS-
It will be June before we have their new product.
Best AM2-
Biostar AMD690G / abit NF-M2 Nview
Intel -
G/Q965:
1. GA-965QM-DS2 - (Strong performance, features, and support, OC limited to 330)
2. ASUS P5B-VM - (ditto, a little less overclocking)
3. Intel DG9650TMKR - (Rock solid board, great stock performance, compatible with everything)
3.5 GA-965GM-S2 - (Really good board, DS2 is just better)
4. Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H - (BIOS away from moving to up a slot or two)
Notes- Still two months away from the X3000 performance driver, early beta shows a lot of promise, as in BF2 and other games will actually run now, Sims2 flies... . MSI board just arrived, G33/35 are still in early Alpha now, video will be DX10 base but once again, do not count on anything special. Main differences will be native 1333 support and new ICH9 Southbridge.
ATI X1250:
1. abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD - (only ATI chipset board we have for the C2D, great performer, on board graphics are decent, overclocking is up around 370FSB, really nice board) Only knock has been reliability but our last two boards have about 500 hours on them without any issues, the first board did fail.
VIA -
1. ASUS P5VD2-MX SE - (Decent performance, cheap, VIA does not fair as well with Intel)
2. Biostar P4M890-M7 - (ditto, need to test latest BIOS, price drop expected)
Intel Other -
1. Foxconn 946GZ7MA-8KS2H, MSI 945GM3-F, ECS 945G-M3, and a couple of new ASRock boards are under testing now....
SIS -
It will be June before we see the new chipset.
Best Intel- (until the tests are finished)
GA-965QM-DS2 / abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD (if we make it to 600 hours ;-) )
Special Mention to the Intel DG9650TMKR, not an overclocker really, great support and quality.
Best Overall Currently-
Still have not made up my mind although I have to by the weekend, still leaning to the AM2 boards to be quite honest based on overall price to performance values at this time. This obviously changes if you use an external PCIe graphics card but still it is hard to notice differences in games if you are comparing like priced CPUs, encoding and photoshop suffer on the AM2 platform when compared heads up to C2D.
Linux Support-
Hands down the NVIDIA 6100/6150 boards first then the Intel G965/945G/946GZ boards. VIA support was decent but the ATI/AMD chipsets are just not up to the level of the others, yet.
Hope this helps, more random thoughts later.
These are the results from testing for each category and are based on a combination of price, performance, options, and support. I would like to stress that we really did not have a bad board or one that would not be worthy of purchasing depending upon your needs or situation although the Intel VIA boards were clearly a step behind. While performance was very close between all of the AM2 boards, it was obvious that the NVIDIA 6100/6150 AM2 boards were a little better at overclocking although the top two 690G boards have come on strong if that is important to you. I personally came to the conclusion that buying a 6000+ or 5600+ at the new prices was a smarter decision than buying a 3800+ or 4200+ and going through the headache of overclocking and stressing the rest of the system. I provided some Cliff Notes for each group.
AM2-
AMD690G-
1. Biostar (best overall features, performance, pricing, support, limited fan control is a killer)
2. Sapphire (close but that x1 PCI-E location was a killer)
3. ASUS (HDMI version, very solid performance, great features, limited OC)
4. MSI (great base board, limited BIOS options, solid performance, pricing is starting to reflect it being a base board)
WildCard - Jetway, Foxconn, Gigabyte 690 boards arrived today, understand from early reports that the ECS board is looking strong as well)
Thoughts - All of the boards performed very well, all were solid and consistent, latest Vista drivers helped tremendously, still having a few rough spots with 1080P playback, overall probably one of the better chipsets to buy in the uATX market, especially considering the AM2 pricing and performance for the dollar. (This comes from a long time Intel user who even drank the i850 / RAMBUS Kool-Aid).
NV6100/6150
1. abit NF-M2 Nview (top overclocking/performance, very good features, mature board)
1.5 Biostar TForce 6100 (excellent performance, stability, features, OC behind abit)
2.5 DFI C51PV-M2/G (really nice board overall, AC97 sound is a joke though, still asking DFI why on that one)
3. ASUS M2N-MX/M2NPV-VM (toss up, depends on feature needs)
4. MSI K9VGM-V, Foxconn K8M890M2MA, ASUS M2V-MX (all of the VIA boards scored very well from an overall viewpoint, very solid performance, if onboard GPU had been a little stronger, price to performance would have led the way in the AM2 roundup)
Wild Card - Foxconn and MSI Quadro 210S boards arrived late last week, both are excellent boards, high quality, and probably will wind up in the number 2 spot.
Thoughts - The most mature group, really did not have any issues to speak of, even after two years on the market, these chipsets are still going strong.
NV7050-
1. Biostar TForce TF7050-M2 (what else can we say, it is the only 7050 board in the labs now) Performance is about 2% better than the 6100/6150 boards in certain applications like encoding and newer games, main benefits are features like native HDMI, newer driver support, and reasonable costs. More 7050 boards are on their way, a weird rollout, NDA has been moved several times, product announcements are not timely, and there seems to be a lack of interest by the suppliers in adopting this solution quickly.
SIS-
It will be June before we have their new product.
Best AM2-
Biostar AMD690G / abit NF-M2 Nview
Intel -
G/Q965:
1. GA-965QM-DS2 - (Strong performance, features, and support, OC limited to 330)
2. ASUS P5B-VM - (ditto, a little less overclocking)
3. Intel DG9650TMKR - (Rock solid board, great stock performance, compatible with everything)
3.5 GA-965GM-S2 - (Really good board, DS2 is just better)
4. Foxconn G9657MA-8EKRS2H - (BIOS away from moving to up a slot or two)
Notes- Still two months away from the X3000 performance driver, early beta shows a lot of promise, as in BF2 and other games will actually run now, Sims2 flies... . MSI board just arrived, G33/35 are still in early Alpha now, video will be DX10 base but once again, do not count on anything special. Main differences will be native 1333 support and new ICH9 Southbridge.
ATI X1250:
1. abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD - (only ATI chipset board we have for the C2D, great performer, on board graphics are decent, overclocking is up around 370FSB, really nice board) Only knock has been reliability but our last two boards have about 500 hours on them without any issues, the first board did fail.
VIA -
1. ASUS P5VD2-MX SE - (Decent performance, cheap, VIA does not fair as well with Intel)
2. Biostar P4M890-M7 - (ditto, need to test latest BIOS, price drop expected)
Intel Other -
1. Foxconn 946GZ7MA-8KS2H, MSI 945GM3-F, ECS 945G-M3, and a couple of new ASRock boards are under testing now....
SIS -
It will be June before we see the new chipset.
Best Intel- (until the tests are finished)
GA-965QM-DS2 / abit Fatal1ty F-I90HD (if we make it to 600 hours ;-) )
Special Mention to the Intel DG9650TMKR, not an overclocker really, great support and quality.
Best Overall Currently-
Still have not made up my mind although I have to by the weekend, still leaning to the AM2 boards to be quite honest based on overall price to performance values at this time. This obviously changes if you use an external PCIe graphics card but still it is hard to notice differences in games if you are comparing like priced CPUs, encoding and photoshop suffer on the AM2 platform when compared heads up to C2D.
Linux Support-
Hands down the NVIDIA 6100/6150 boards first then the Intel G965/945G/946GZ boards. VIA support was decent but the ATI/AMD chipsets are just not up to the level of the others, yet.
Hope this helps, more random thoughts later.