Group test: what's the best motherboard?

5. MSI P55-GD80

• Reviewed on: 17 February 10
• RRP: £122.86 inc VAT
• Rating:

On the whole, the MSI P55-GD80 is a board for desktop PC enthusiasts with its long list of features and simple over-clocking. It is priced alright but MSI has not targeted the mainstream market with this model, leaving that role for lower-priced boards to penetrate the market later.

4. Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H

• Reviewed on: 9 March 10
• RRP: £99.5 inc VAT
• Rating:

The crown for best integrated graphics processor (IGP) goes back to AMD with the 890GX chipset and its Radeon 4290 onboard. Never mind that SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 hardware have barely started making an appearance in the market. This particular model from Gigabyte manages to cram all the features that you might want your motherboard to have, taking a mid-term view of 2 years down the road. The Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H is a very good choice if you are going to purchase a desktop PC based on an AMD processor.

3. MSI Big Bang Fuzion

• Reviewed on: 24 May 10
• RRP: £299 inc. VAT
• Rating:

Lucid Hydra is an exciting technology to play around with, hopefully future updates make it more useful. On the whole, the MSI Big Bang Fuzion is a well-featured motherboard for PC hardware enthusiasts. It is priced for a niche, and the inclusion of SLI support, USB 3.0 ports, and SATA 6Gbps ports would have been nice.

2. Asus M4A88T-M

• Reviewed on: 4 January 11
• RRP: £64.16 inc VAT
• Rating:

The Asus M4A88T-M motherboard is a successor to the ones based on an AMD 785G chipset. If anything, our only complaint is that Asus did not use the newer SB850 for this board, thus leaving out SATA 6Gbps support. Also, this board is not for gamers, unless they are willing to turn off almost all visual eye-candy and make the game look very drab. Yet the integrated graphics (IGP - Radeon 4250) on this motherboard is the best in the mainstream price range. The Intel graphics integrated into the recent Core i5/i3 manages to give it tough competition, but even that is not ahead by much of a margin. In such a case, the price is the clincher for the Asus M4A88T-M, if you're looking for an AMD motherboard.

1. Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3R

• Reviewed on: 7 December 10
• RRP: TBA
• Rating:

The Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3R is a prime contender for the title of a good enthusiast motherboard for upcoming fast mainstream processors. It offers USB 3.0 support, SATA 6GB/s support and comfortable full-ATX layout, although the Intel LGA1155 socket it is designed for itself may not be very long-lived.