The computer industry is preparing for a whole new evolution in technology, particularly from the motherboard market. While technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet and Serial ATA have excited the market for quite some time now, there has become greater need for better technologies to evolve. The kind of advancements we can look forward to receiving in 2004 is an upgraded I/O standard, called PCI Express. Other technologies such as DDR-II and 64-bit architectures will also become widely accepted. With all these new technologies becoming available this year, building or buying a computer has once again developed into quite a confusing scenario. Deciding on the right processor, memory, graphics card, chipset and so on, will become a very difficult task and being in the know has never been so important.

Should you wait around for DDR-II memory and supportive chipsets to crop up? When will PCI Express motherboards be readily available and when will supportive devices, i.e. graphics cards, be available? Of course release dates or estimated dates have been set for the majority of the upcoming technologies. If you do choose to wait and see how these new technologies are accepted thats fine, but there is another alternative. Build or buy your new computer now while prices of hardware continue to fall. Then deal with technology such as PCI Express once it has been widely accepted and given time to mature.

Say this is the road you choose to travel, then you currently have two basic processor options. These two options being either an Intel Pentium 4 or the AMD AthlonXP processor. For the sake of this article lets assume you select chipzilla (Intel) to be your processor manufacturer. As Pentium 4 processor prices are at an all time low, this decision could be considered a good one. Currently the Pentium 4 is enjoying the company of DDR (Double Data Rate) memory when used in Dual-Channel. When used in Dual-Channel DDR memory can supply the Pentium 4 processor with up to 6.4GB/s of bandwidth. At the moment two 256MB sticks of PC3200 (DDR400) memory will roughly cost a total of just $70 US. This means getting yourself into Dual-Channel action has also never been cheaper.

The last and possibly the most crucial decision of them all is deciding which chipset will run your Dual-Channel DDR Pentium 4 system? Well obviously its required to support Dual-Channel DDR, which leaves us with just a few high-end solutions from none less than Intel themselves, along with SiS and VIA. Intel has recently been dominating the Pentium 4 chipset market with their i875P and i865 chipsets. The high-end i875P chipset supports all the standard Pentium 4 features such as the 800MHz FSB and Hyper-Threading. However, additional features such as Dual-Channel DDR400, USB 2.0, AGP 8X and Serial ATA have all been integrated into the chipset.

Newer chipsets supporting the Pentium 4 platform have also emerged from the likes of SiS and VIA. The 655TX chipset from SiS has already proved to offer exceptional performance at a reasonable price. In fact, the performance of the 655TX chipset has been so good in quite a number of instances that it has been found outperforming the i875P. However, the biggest let down for SiS has been the lack of support they received from the motherboard makers. Even to this day it is still very difficult to find a motherboard boasting the 655TX chipset, which is a real shame.

On the other hand there is VIA, a company fighting their way back into the Pentium 4 chipset market. After recently having so much success with their K8 entry chipset, VIA are keen to get back into the Intel market. The PT800 chipset was focused on bringing value to the Pentium 4 platform and it did, but only in very small quantities. The future of VIAs Pentium 4 chipset sales now lies in the hands of the PT880. The PT880 has been quick to gain acceptance by motherboard manufactures and already I have an example of this from Gigabyte. Lets move on a take a look at each motherboard/chipset individually.