This board should capture the imagination of the gaming market, thanks to its cooling innovations, fast specs and red-illuminated edges.

This is very much a board for enthusiasts. It produced very good performance at its default settings and it is fairly easy to overclock, but it didn't overclock as high as some other recent boards we've tried. All up though, it's well built, has good features and runs quietly.

It's a little cheaper than comparable cards, but its performance is not quite up to scratch.

Rock solid performance and pain-free installation make this board a sweet choice as a new Intel Pentium platform. It's a particularly good board to consider if you use a lot of FireWire devices.

The jumper adds novelty, but ultimately this card is outperformed by the competition. Worth considering for a budget system but not much else.

All things considered, we really liked this board's ease of installation, stability and performance and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who wants a well-performing Athlon system, but doesn't need the plethora of features that ASUS and MSI offer.

This low-priced TV tuner card has some handy features, but overall it's awkward to use.

If you're after a board that has SLI capabilities then this one is well worth it at only $199.

A great performer for the cost, definitely one to look out for if you want bang for your buck.

If you have a graphics enthusiast’s heart, but lack the wallet size to match, then ATI's Radeon HD 4850 is the kind of bargain you’ve been waiting for. It offers a solid performance in all but the most power-hungry applications, at a price that even a pauper could afford.

At this point in time a single-core CPU should only be considered by those on a tight budget or with limited requirements. While many single-core CPU models including the Athlon 64 3800+ are suitable for gaming, everyday computing, MP3 encoding and even video editing, their multitasking performance really does not compare to dual-core processors.

The HD 4550 is a good, affordable option for high-def movie playback and occasional gaming. However, unless you’re on a shoestring budget, we’d recommend the HD 4670 instead. It offers a vastly superior graphics performance for a slightly higher premium.