Build A PC

A custom PC configuration guide. © 2000,2001,2002 by Jef Poskanzer.

Motherboards

My choices for the top motherboard manufacturers, plus selected recent boards:

SuperMicro

Excellent mid-to-high-end server boards. They like the ServerWorks chipsets, which provide 64bit/66MHz PCI slots. They also put SCSI on many of their boards. They don't like Athlons though.

• P4QH6 - quad P4 Xeon
• P4DLR,
• P4DME-M - dual P4 Xeon

Tyan

Excellent boards for the workstation and server segments. They also use the ServerWorks chipsets in some of their boards.

• Thunder i7500 - dual P4 Xeon
• Thunder K7X - dual Athlon

ABit

Good quality mid-range boards. One of the most popular manufacturers among the do-it-yourself crowd.

• IT7 - P4 (socket 478)
• KX7-333 - Athlon

Gigabyte

These folks make a whole lot of pretty good boards.

• GA-8IGXP - P4 (socket 478)
• GA-7VRXP - Athlon

Iwill

A small manufacturer with some great server boards.

• DP400-N - dual P4 Xeon
• P4D - P4 (socket 478)
• XP333 - Athlon

Microstar / MSI Lots of fine boards, frequently updated.

• KT3 Ultra - Athlon

AOpen

Another large manufacturer, also popular with the do-it-yourself folks.

• AX4G Pro - P4 (socket 478)
• AK77-333 - Athlon

Asus

Cheap and reasonable quality.

• A7M266-D - dual Athlon
• P4B533-V - P4 (socket 478)
• A7V333 - Athlon

Some other manufacturers:

• Azza
• Biostar
• ChainTech
• Elitegroup
• EPoX
• FIC
• Intel
• Jetway
• Procomp
• QDI
• Shuttle
• Soyo
• Tekram
• TMC
• Transcend

For more specific recommendations, check out the ACME Motherboard Finder. A good source for the latest motherboard news is motherboards.org.