Motherboard

Gigabyte GA-MA69GM-S2H

Wow, it has actually been three months since my last motherboard review and that has left a gap in our comparison tables that needs filling in a bad way. The thing is in order to have these comparison tables, it takes weeks and weeks of testing to get a stable balance and enough motherboards to have accurate scoring in a weighed scoring program. It takes ten motherboards and three eight hour shifts per board to test and retest the boards three times for a balanced score. This is for each platform so times that by two and it sheds a little light on why there has been a gap. We are however The Motherboard Homeworld and I apologize to our readers who rely on that aspect of the site. The bright side is that is all about to change and we have now many reviews in our queue of the G33, G35 Intel chipsets and the new AMD 690, we hope to be up to speed and back in the saddle soon.

Gigabyte is and has been one of the top players in the PC movement and we have worked with them many times in the past on many a project. They are only second to Asus and the number two company that has the enthusiast's ear and eyes in this industry. Specializing in overclocking and having motherboards that feature the latest in technology is their claim to fame, but they also have a value line of products for those on a budget. All in all Gigabyte has a product to fit any budget whether it is introductory or enthusiast.

AMD has been struggling with their chipset projects for the past few years and even though they have made more than a few nice advancements in their chipset design, they just do not seem to be embraced wholeheartedly by the enthusiast's community at large. The 570 and 590 chipset got a lukewarm response in the industry as well and there were many very decent motherboards based on those chipsets. What is strange though is that not many of those boards supported AMD's CrossFire platform only the 580 chipset boards supported this industry wide. This does seem odd to me as most good Intel based motherboards support CrossFire, but AMD's own brand of chipset boards mostly do not. Today's motherboard contender is based on AMD's latest chipset venture the 690 and once again we see no CrossFire support, but single card support with the addition of available onboard graphics is present.