Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top

The long-awaited Socket 939 Athlon 64 from AMD debuted on June 1 at Computex, but it has taken quite a while for Socket 939 motherboards to make their way into the retail channel. With the Socket 939 still perched at the top of the AMD product line, both in price and performance, the offerings still remain very small. We take a look at 5 new motherboards for Socket 939 from Abit, ECS, Gigabyte, and MSI. Asus has also launched a Socket 939 motherboard, but we learned as we were preparing the roundup that Asus will soon release an updated version of their A8V Deluxe, and Asus asked us to hold off reviewing their 939 board until the new release was available. DFI has also announced a Socket 939 board based on the nForce3 Ultra chipset, but that board is not yet in the retail channel. We will take a look at both these very interesting 939 boards as soon as they are available.