Current Cost: $105
For the nth month in a row, Gigabyte has the Athlon value motherboard answer with their GA-7ZX. In our testing with the Duron and Athlon Thunderbird, the GA-7ZX has proved to be extremely solid. In fact, it has made it into our value test bed. There is no more glowing a recommendation than our willingness to live with a board on a daily basis. The 7ZX is also much less expensive than the ASUS A7V, ABIT KT7, or any of the name brand KT133A boards that are starting to come out.
The 7ZX includes five PCI slots, one ISA slot, plenty of room around the CPU for wacky overclocking gear, software overclocking, and more than acceptable audio onboard. For a "value" board, it comes with some serious high-end features.
Onboard audio? Well, yes. The 7ZX does use a software CODEC for onboard audio, so there is some hit to performance when you're gaming. We ran tests in Quake III Arena and saw less than a 3% performance drop versus a SoundBlaster Live! -- about two frames out of eighty -- and the sound quality is more than acceptable. Crazy guys that we are, we would rather spend $40 on a new game or a couple of DVDs than drop it for 3% more fps.
See our review of the Gigabyte GA-7ZX here
See our High End Gaming PC motherboard recommendation here
OR...
Current Cost: $110
ASUS' CUSL2-C is our motherboard pick for this month's Intel Value Gaming PC Buyer's Guide. With six PCI slots, one CNR slot, a USB header for extra USB ports, ATA-100, easy overclocking, excellent stability and high quality, there is absolutely nothing about this board you cannot love. We see no reason in building a new 440BX system when this i815E board is around, and FYI, this article was written on a system sporting a CUSL2, the CUSL2-C sibling that comes with integrated video.
Another possible choice is ABIT's SE6. It is widely available with onboard audio, which can save you a bit of dinero in overall system cost.
See our ASUS CUSL2 motherboard review here
See our High End Gaming PC motherboard recommendation here