The Value Connection of 6 Intel 945P Motherboards
 

We recently ruffled a lot of feathers when we compared a low-cost and premium motherboard and showed that the differences in quality were very small, indeed. The value add that expensive motherboards offer compared to cheap products has been shrinking, in fact, for years. So, are there any substantive differences left between today's motherboards? Could the price war jeopardize the quality levels? .........

If you are looking to assemble a versatile system, you will notice an interesting development: While AMD has been providing the best price/performance ratio out there, the quality level of the two processor giants' products has converged. Should a dual core system find its way in your dream machine, Intel's Pentium D even outperforms AMD's X2 in terms of price/performance - although the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ was recently added to fight in the middle end..........

........ If you want to go with a Pentium 4 or Pentium D computer today, do still tread carefully, however. The real downside of Intel's current architecture is high leakage currents, which means king-size thermal dissipation and cooling requirements. Unfortunately, Enhanced SpeedStep is not available for all processor models and eases the problem only partially, leaving the user along with high thermal numbers and electricity bills.

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherbo...901/index.html