The motherboard market is unique as compared to any other single computer component market. For example, unlike the processor (CPU) industry there are several players, not just Intel and AMD. Another prefect example would be the graphics card industry where just NVIDIA and ATi are clearly dominating. However, like everything the motherboard market does have its strong and weak competitors. The first-tier motherboard manufacturers are ASUS, ECS, MSI and Gigabyte. There are also roughly thirty other manufacturers that do produce motherboards, though not all depend on them as a primary product line.

The great thing about the motherboard industry is its wide range of diversity, which is unlikely to change any time soon. However, there are two main types of manufacturers. There are those that produced large quantities of custom built motherboards for companies such as IBM and Dell. These manufacturers are not so well known by enthusiasts as they generally do not produce products of interest. The other manufacturers rely on their ability to quickly adapt to new chipsets and processors, giving them the capability to offer the most cutting edge technologies. These manufacturers are certainly among the more popular as they deliver exactly what the enthusiasts seek.

Although it has always been important for companies such as ASUS and Gigabyte to be quick in offering new motherboards based on the latest technologies, this has become a small part of the battle. Today motherboard manufacturers run the risk of becoming clones and therefore it has now become extremely important for these companies to produce very unique products. These days many functions of the mainboard have become integrated into the chipset, so motherboard companies have had to discover other ways to be distinctive. In other words, selling a wide variety of products helps each company maintain a unique image and, more importantly, build a broader customer base.

This is already very evident as no motherboard manufacturer produces just motherboards anymore. Instead they have adapted to producing a whole host of computer devices and components. A company that is much lesser known for their production of motherboards is Intel. Few people realize that the chip giant Intel produces things other than processors, after all they are the chip giant. This includes things from memory devices to chipsets and of course motherboards. In fact Intel is one of the few manufacturers that comes close to being able to build an entire computer based on their own hardware and their own hardware alone.

Today I will be looking at two current generation Intel motherboards based on two different chipsets. The all powerful D925XCV utilizes the Intel 925X (Extreme) chipset designed to deliver maximum performance. The other being the D915GUX which features the 915G chipset boasting Intels new Graphics Media Accelerator 900 engine. This integrated graphics engine is a decent step up from the Extreme Graphics 2 engine, as we were all hoping it would be. Both Intel boards look impressive and carry mid-range price tags.