PC Zenith v4

MSI has built a stellar motherboard with the DKA790GX Platinum board. The board has all of the features that you would want from a 790GX motherboard including HD 3300 graphics with CrossfireX capability, ACC overclocking and more. From a performance point of view, the DKA790GX has nearly the same performance as the other 790GX board that I tested, meaning that it is pretty high on the totem pole. It did work better in Hybrid CrossFire than our previous 790GX boards and that is a very good thing. MSI DKA790GX Platinum @ Motherboards.org

Well what can we say other than that for a micro ATX board DFI managed to squeeze most things you need into a smaller package. In terms of motherboard features, the Lanparty JR P45-T2RS has almost all of the options of a full-sized board including CrossFire, 8 channel HD audio, heatpipe cooling, CMOS Reloaded and a solid design with all solid capacitors. The only thing really lacking compared to a standard board is a Firewire port. All the features tested in this review worked as promised and setup was quite straightforward. For motherboard layout, DFI did a good job in squeezing everything possible onto a smaller board. The layout is actually great; connectors are in the most convenient places, the 24 pin ATX connector is out of the way on the right edge and there are two CMOS jumpers (which is good because you will need them!). The PCI-E slots leave enough space to use full-sized water blocks on GPUs or even dual slot coolers although the second card covers one of the CMOS jumpers. One thing in the build that may limit the top end use for enthusiasts is 4 layer pcb and 4 phase PWM. DFI Lanparty JR P45-T2RS @ HardwareCanucks

ASUS, the world´s leading producer of motherboards, today unveiled the most advanced and highest performing enthusiast motherboard at present: the Republic of Gamers (ROG) Rampage II Extreme. In keeping with ROG´s commitment to producing cutting-edge, boundary-redefining products for the serious gaming and overclocking community, the ROG Rampage II Extreme incorporates the latest innovations and components into its architecture, such as the latest Intel chipset and SLI/CrossFireX on Demand—delivering blistering performance through its support for the new range of Intel processors and multi-GPU technologies such as 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX. To enable users to push the capabilities of the new platform to the limit, the ROG Rampage II Extreme features ROG Extreme Engine, a true multi-phase power management system—16 phases for the CPU and 3 phases each for QPI/DRAM, the Northbridge and memory—with premium Multilayer type Polymer Capacitors (ML Caps) that keep the power supply stable even under the most demanding loads. Read full press release @ TechPowerUp!

MSI’s P45 Diamond is an attractively packaged motherboard (just check out the size of the box!) that performs well for the price. It costs about a third of the price compared to seriously high-end solutions from the like of ASUS and Foxconn, but it’s comparable to Intel’s X48 and nVidia’s 790 chipsets when it comes to everyday usage and gaming. It looks pretty neat (the CircuPipe and the water-cooled Northbridge block in particular), sports an impressive array of onboard features, and the BIOS offers good overclocking and tweaking options. The P45 Diamond isn’t the most powerful solution for extreme users (that’ll be one based on Intel’s imminent X58 chipset and Corei7 processors), but it’s a decent all-rounder for the price. MSI P45 Diamond @ Bios Magazine

Believe it or not Gigabyte lists 18 models of motherboard that are built around the Intel P45 chipset. Add the G45, P43, G43 and X48 chipsets into the equation and the total number of current Core 2 models rises to 29 which is confusing to say the least, so it’s worth taking a moment to see exactly where the GA-EP45-DS3P fits into Gigabyte’s product range. Every P45 model has a model code that starts GA-EP45 so it’s the suffix that we’re interested in, which in this case is DS3P. This is an Ultra Durable 2 motherboard so the area around the CPU socket is typically neat and tidy and that won’t change with the transition to Ultra Durable 3 as the chokes, capacitors and MOSFETs look the same. The cooling system is slightly more extensive than we would expect for a DS3 model with a heatpipe linking the passive cooler on the power regulation hardware behind the IO panel and the cooler on the Northbridge. The tiny cooler on the hardware at the top of the board and the similarly small Southbridge cooler aren’t connected and have to rely on the airflow inside the case to keep them cool. Read more @ TrustedReviews.

The Gigabyte EP45-T Extreme is an excellent board, even with its DDR3 timing shortcomings.It has great I/O expandability, and an excellent feature set; it was quite stable during testing – and I never had to remove the CMOS battery no matter how I tried to overclock it! I liked all the copper heatsinks and heatpipes too, and the debug LED and on-board switches are great when tweaking. Don’t put too much weight on the good, but less than stellar DDR3 performance – the performance is “good enough” that you can only tell the shortcomings of the P45 on some benchmarks, and it does not greatly affect benchmarks; frankly the easy overclockability and feature set outweigh the slight performance loss on the memory side of things. Read more @ Neoseeker.