Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/925



Untitled Document Introduction
To start off the month of June, we bring you the Motherboard and Memory Price Guide. For those of you not familiar with the guides here is a brief overview on how we construct them:

We select vendors to appear in our Price Guides based on two requirements: solid consumer feedback and having the lowest possible pricing. You'll notice that these vendors aren't paying us to be listed here; we do not accept requests to be listed here. We have tried to eliminate vendors with low feedback rating, but we do encourage you to do your own research before purchasing from any of these vendors.

With the new and improved Price Guides we have not only increased our standards when evaluating online vendors, but we have also partnered up with our friends at CNet to offer yet another service to you all. Using CNet's Shopper.com search engine we can provide you with an additional pool of vendors to search from that are checked up on by CNet. You can wade through those results by clicking on the CNet Pricing link in the second to last column on the right.

If there are any problems with the guide or a vendor's pricing changes dramatically then be sure to email the author listed at the top of the page and we'll take appropriate action. Remember that although some vendors may be cheaper, we only list those with generally positive feedback from a decent number of consumers. As usual, if you have any questions, comments or suggestions feel free to email us or post in the AnandTech Forums.

Also be sure to check out AnandTech's Hot Deals Forum for even more great Motherboards, Memory and other technology buys.

Disclaimer
AnandTech does not endorse any vendor listed in the following price guide. AnandTech does not sell positions on the Price Guide. AnandTech nor any of the vendors listed in this guide guarantee the prices presented in the following pages.

This Week
As usual, if you have any reports of incorrect prices please feel free to email us with the name of the vendor and the product/price that appears incorrectly on their website. This will help us produce a more useful guide in the future.

Since our last posted Motherboard and Memory Price Guide in May, we have received a few requests to throw boards carrying the Nvidia nForce 220/420 and SiS 730/735 chipsets on to the charts. We asked ourselves why we had not done this in the previous guide and after much consideration, about a second or two's worth, we did as you asked.

Go ahead and take a look at this week's changes in prices for the most popular boards along with the top brands in desktop memory...



Untitled Document

VIA KT333 Chipset

Motherboard
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
Gigabyte GA-7VRX VIA KT333
$79.00
$81.00
-$2.00
8.00 - 12.00
OEM
Shuttle AK35GT2 VIA KT333
$73.00
$75.00
-$2.00
8
RTL
EPOX EP-8K3A VIA KT333
$75.00
$83.00
-$8.00
10.00 - 13.00
OEM
MSI MS-6380E KT3 VIA KT333
$69.00
$80.00
-$11.00
10.00 - 13.00
RTL
Aopen AK77-333 VIA KT333
$79.00
$80.00
-$1.00
8
RTL
ECS K7VTA3 v3.1 VIA KT333
$72.00
NA
NA
8.95
OEM
AsusTek A7V333 VIA KT333
$108.00
NA
NA
10.00 - 12.00
RTL

 

Looking over the chart from last month, we noticed that two main motherboard manufacturers were missing on the list, Asus and ECS. So we took the liberty to write them in. Though not exactly the cheapest of the boards on the list, these companies have proven to be two of best in a handfull of motherboard manufacturers.



Untitled Document
Intel 850 / 850E
Motherboard
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
Intel D850GBC i850
$79.00
$79.00
$0.00
10
OEM
Gigabyte GA-8TX-C i850
$95.00
$95.00
$0.00
8.00 - 10.00
AsusTek P4T-ATX i850
$104.00
$91.00
$13.00
8.00 - 10.00
RTL
Abit TH7II-RAID i850
$105.00
$104.00
$1.00
4
Epox EP-4T2A3 i850
$128.00
$130.00
-$2.00
8
RTL
MSI MS-850 Pro 5 i850
$128.00
$129.00
-$1.00
11.5
Intel D850EMV2 i850E
$148.00
$154.00
-$6.00
8.00 - 10.00
RTL
AsusTek P4T533-C i850E
$162.00
$159.00
$3.00
4
OEM
 
Intel 845 / 845E / 845G
Motherboard
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
Tyan Trinity S2090 i845
$63.00
$63.00
$0.00
12
RTL
MSI MS-6534 i845
$61.00
$65.00
-$4.00
6.00 - 9.00
OEM
Shuttle AB30 i845
$65.00
$65.00
$0.00
8.95
OEM
Gigabyte GA-8IDX i845
$65.00
$67.00
-$2.00
7.00 - 9.00
RTL
Abit BL7 i845
$72.00
$75.00
-$3.00
11
RTL
Aopen AX4BS-V i845
$75.00
$75.00
$0.00
9
OEM
Gigabyte GA-8IE i845E
$105.00
$95.00
$10.00
8
OEM
MSI MS-6566E i845E
$90.00
$90.00
$0.00
8
OEM
AsusTek P4B533-VM i845G
$106.00
$112.00
-$6.00
11.00 - 13.00
RTL
MSI MS-6580 i845G
$99.00
$105.00
-$6.00
8
RTL
Abit BG7 i845G
$119.00
$125.00
-$6.00
10.00 - 15.00
RTL

Prices on almost half of the Intel chipset carrying motherboards seemed to have done a good job at dropping a few dollars off their tags while the rest have stayed put at 0% change. Also as requested, many retail boards have made the list.



Untitled Document

nForce 220/420

Motherboard
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
AsusTek A7N266-VM nForce 220
$77.00
NA
NA
9
Abit NV7M nForce 420
$82.00
NA
NA
8
MSI K7N415 Pro nForce 420
$100.00
NA
NA
12

The revolutionary chipset by Nvidia, one of the worlds leading GPU manufacturers, have made the price guides. Boasting improved performance over other chipset brands, these new technological wonders have won the hearts of many computer enthusiasts.



Untitled Document

SiS 730/735

Motherboard
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
ECS K7SEM SiS 730
$54.00
NA
NA
8
RTL
ECS K7S5A SiS 735
$54.00
NA
NA
8
RTL
Leadtek 7350KDA SiS 735
$84.00
NA
NA
8
RTL
Chaintech 7SID SiS 735
$53.00
NA
NA
8
RTL

Along with the introduction of the name Nvidia in the chipset market, SiS has also made it over the obstacles of manufacturing quality motherboard chipsets. Here are some of the current makers of boards carrying the SiS 730 and 735 series chipsets.



Untitled Document
DDR Memory
RAM
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
XtremeDDR PC3200 DDR 512MB 
$182.00
$185.00
-$3.00
5
OEM
XtremeDDR PC3200 DDR 256MB
$79.00
$83.00
-$4.00
5
OEM
Mushkin PC3000 DDR 512MB
$161.00
NA
NA
Free
OEM
XtremeDDR PC3000 DDR 256MB
$76.00
$82.00
-$6.00
7
OEM
XtremeDDR PC2700 DDR 512MB
$145.00
NA
NA
7
OEM
Kingmax PC2700 DDR 256MB
$58.00
$79.00
-$21.00
5.00 - 8.00
OEM
Corsair PC2400 DDR 512MB
$149.00
$155.00
-$6.00
9.00 - 10.00
OEM
Kingmax PC2400 DDR 256MB
$54.00
$65.00
-$11.00
5.00 - 8.00
OEM
Mushkin PC2100 DDR 512MB
$83.00
$93.00
-$10.00
Free
OEM
Micron PC2100 DDR 256MB
$35.00
NA
NA
9.00 - 11.00
OEM
Samsung PC1600 DDR 512MB
$124.00
$124.00
$0.00
11
OEM
Micron Technology PC1600 DDR 256MB
$35.00
$36.00
-$1.00
10.00 - 12.00
OEM

In the past few weeks, DDR memory prices have dropped significantly. As you can see from this table, the greatest decrease in price was held by the Kingmax 256MB PC2700 DDR chip from $79 to $58, a $21 decrease over a period of two weeks. Mushkin also did well with the 512MB PC3000 DDR chip at $161 which replaced the XtremeDDR brand, while XtremeDDR replaced Corsair for the lowest price of the 512MB PC2700 DDR chip.

RDRAM
RAM
Current Price (06/07/02)
Last Price (5/26/02)
Change
Vendor
Shipping
CNet Pricing
Notes
Samsung PC1066 RDRAM 256MB
$128.00
$125.00
$3.00
10
OEM
Samsung PC800 RDRAM 512MB
$170.00
$177.00
-$7.00
5.22
OEM
Kingston PC800 RDRAM 256MB
$77.00
$87.00
-$10.00
10
OEM
Kingston PC800 RDRAM 128MB
$37.00
NA
NA
10
OEM

For RDRAM chips, while we search for more to add to the list, the current leaders in pricing have done well. Kingston's 256MB PC800 chip lost $10 of its price while Samsung's 512MB PC800 cut $7 from its previous listing of $177.

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