Anand heeft op z'n frontpage een post geplaatst over de kwaliteit van de momenteel verkrijgbare Athlon mobo's. Volgens hem zijn de huidige Athlon planken van discutabele kwaliteit en zou het niet onverstandig zijn om even een paar maand wachten tot er betere én goedkopere borden te koop zijn:
I've spent most of tonight working on the Gigabyte and FIC Athlon motherboards and I've come to the unfortunate conclusion that there are no good Athlon motherboards on the market. It is really frustrating to see an excellent chip such as the Athlon be plagued by poor quality motherboards, this isn't directed specifically at Gigabyte/FIC but at the motherboard industry in general. Dr. Pabst (Tom's Hardware Guide) made a very valid point in saying that Intel may be strong arming motherboard manufacturers into not supporting the Athlon platform. It seems like motherboard manufacturers aren't seeing the potential for sales in this area, do they not remember the success ABIT attained with the world's first Slot-1 motherboard with voltage tweaking? How about even further in the history of motherboards, the first HX board with support for the 83MHz bus speed? How many users out there are still happily using their T2P4s? And how many of them kept on supporting the ASUS brand ever since then? I can guarantee you that if at least one motherboard manufacturer gets their act together and produces a truly high quality Athlon motherboard, they won't regret it.Now I shouldn't make the generalization that no motherboard manufacturers understand this, in fact, quite a few of them do and unfortunately they're going to be abusing that knowledge quite a bit. How? Think back to when the first BX motherboards were released. No one bought one of the first BX boards with the knowledge that a much better board would be out in less than 6 months time at the same or an even lower price. There are going to be quite a few users that are going to go out and buy Athlons and Athlon motherboards the minute they can get their hands on them, and I don't blame them at all. The benchmarks speak for themselves, the Athlon is an incredibly fast processor. Here's where my complaint lies, the same people that are spending their hard earned money on the Athlons are going to be spending that same money (around $200 - $300 of it) on a motherboard. And what happens to that $200 - $300 after you already bought a motherboard and find out that 2 months later that you could get a better board at the same if not cheaper cost? It goes to waste on a motherboard that never should've been released in the first place. Quite a few of the Athlon motherboards that made it at the launch of the processor were never meant to be flagship products that would be mass produced. To me, they seem like quickly put together solutions that serve no purpose other than to get as many quick sells as possible and tide the market over until the real products are finished.
I'm not telling anyone not to buy an Athlon (I wouldn't dream of that) but what I am doing is giving you a heads up on the situation. Now, more than ever, is the time to wait if you're looking to upgrade your system. October is not too far away and you will see quite a few new product introductions made in that month, not only in the graphics market but in the CPU and motherboard markets as well. I hope my hints have made some sense
Athlon supporters, there is light at the end of this tunnel.
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