Socket AM2 motherboards:MSI K9N SLI Platinum

Asus uses the higher-end Nforce 590 chipset, so you get dual PCI Express 16x graphics slots, although not all of the features listed to the right are present in the current BIOS. There's no DualNet or FirstPacket, for example, which is a shame. However, Asus compensates for this with its own AI Net 2, which offers the same teaming and fail-over capabilities. It also goes one better than the rest of the audio codecs on offer, using a SoundMAX ADI AD1988B chip, which is Vista Premium compliant. This can be coupled with the dual microphone also bundled. Our only criticism is the awkward placing of the four-pin 12V power connector, but with such speed and features on offer it's our choice of the current crop of boards.

Author: Clive Webster