The Best Motherboards

XO Tronic J 610BF

Based on the Intel 810 chipset, the J610BF scored average in terms of performance and features, but is very aggressively priced. In fact, among all the 810 motherboards that we reviewed, this was priced the lowest. It supports front side bus speeds of up to 133 MHz, and gave the highest frame rates in Quake II in OpenGL mode. It has power connectors for both AT and ATX, and so will fit into any older AT-compliant cabinet. The motherboard also has several enhanced features such as Wake on LAN (WoL) support, and onboard audio and video. Overall, it’s a great buy for entry-level desktops.

Intel Desktop Board CA 810E

This Celeron motherboard is a sure winner where performance is concerned, and was well above the others in all benchmark scores. In particular, it performed much better than all the others in its category in the gaming benchmarks. However, it loses out on price, and was the most expensive

motherboard–among all categories. The manual supplied with this motherboard wasn’t as detailed and comprehensive as the others–it was just a quick reference. The best part about this board is that it’s jumper-less, so that all configuration can be done through the BIOS. It has a good layout and there’s no interference between cables or connectors. It has a Micro ATX form factor with all ports onboard. Though it’s based on the Intel 810 chipset, it doesn’t have an AMR (Audio/Modem Riser) slot.

So, if you want the best performance, and price can take a back seat, this is definitely a good choice. 

Mid range 

XO Tronic Slot 1 810 ATX

If

you want a simple MP3 player with no extra frills, this is definitely for

you. It doesn’t hog CPU power, or memory resources the way some others do.

It has an easy-to-use playlist editor. Its specialty lies in its decoder,

which specializes in hardware-based MP3 encoding solutions. Its interface is

pretty intuitive, but lacks certain basic features like a graphic equalizer

and options to repeat and shuffle your MP3 files.

High End 

Asus 440BX P3B-F

This player covers up your entire screen with a complicated interface. Due to its complexity, it didn’t score very well on intuitiveness. It has advanced playlist management and mixing capabilities, and supports drag-n-drop playlist editing between various mixer windows and panels. It also lets you mix additional WAV and MP3 effects with your music. But it’s a major resource hog in terms of CPU and memory usage.