ECS Elitegroup has been around for more then 2 decades and is known to provide our consumers with some of today's most budget friendly motherboards. While ECS has made some extensive improvements over the last few years with its style and design, we also continue to see ECS provide some "easy on money" type products. Today we have the opportunity to look at the ECS A970M-A Deluxe Motherboard. This motherboard is budget friendly while also providing some aesthetic enhancements. The gold and white mixed with the black PCB really makes this board stand out, but the colors alone aren't the only thing that makes this board stand out... As we move forward we get to show you something new that we haven't see with most of today's motherboards. Let's dive in! First, here's a little about ECS Elitegroup.

The Z77 Chipset has now been on the market for almost a year since its first debut. During its launch we saw several products from various manufactures that jumped into the pond to bring their latest and greatest at the time. Now that we have seen this platform and chipset mature a bit, many manufacturers have hit the drawing board and are trying to revamp new revisions to this already well bloomed platform. With that being said, today we are going to look at a new motherboard from MSI. On the test bench today we have the MSI Z77-GD65 Gaming Edition Motherboard for the Intel 1155 socket platform. We have seen the well matured version of the MSI Z77-GD65 perform above the average standard and actually received our Editors Choice award during its initial release. The new MSI Z77-GD65 Gaming Edition has spruced up its aesthetic appeal but that's not all. MSI has given this board a new set of software and hardware to meet the demands of today's gamers. Let's put it to the test and see if it lives up to its predecessor.

When it comes to looking for an AMD motherboard with the 990FX chipset, there are few new options right now. The 990FX chipset from AMD has been around for more then a few years now and we have recently only seen manufacturers doing revisions to the existing chipset boards. We are unsure on when the launch of a possible new chipset will be for AMD so for now it looks like it will remain at the top. Today we will take a look at one of the newest of these current top-tier motherboards, the ASRock 990FX Extreme 9. ASRock's previous top motherboard was the Fatal1ty 990FX Professional. How will this board stack up with today's new FX series processors and the piledriver architecture? We will put that to the test.

With its 3rd Generation Intel processors now on most stores shelves, its only time that all the manufactures start to phase out the old and introduce the new. Today's we are going to look at a great budget friendly motherboard from Gigabyte the Z77-HD4 that will bring to the table the affordability along with its performance standard we have come to know. When it comes to building a PC one of the most vital parts of the system is the motherboard. So if you are building a high end gaming system to your budget friendly internet surfer or your primary work station, its important to keep in mind that you want to find the motherboard that will fit your needs. The question that most have is, how will this motherboard perform? how is the reliability? does it have what I need? how is the future proofing? but before we dive into this review and help you answer some of those questions lets start by taking a look at Gigabyte as a company.

With the release of AMD's Trinity APU, we are starting to see more and more manufacturers releasing this new FM2 Socket series of motherboards. If you are not familiar with AMD's APU systems, it's a processor that has an on-die graphics processing unit embedded into the CPU. AMD started its APU line just over a year ago with the Zacate series processors which carried the FM1 Socket. AMD released this as their "Fusion" technology, which is designed to combine the CPU with the raw processing power of on-die graphics at an affordable price-point. AMD recently took this "Fusion" technology a little further with its recent release of Trinity, and incorporated its new processing architecture of Piledriver to the new FM2 Socket series chips. In fact, today we will be using the AMD Trinity A10-5800k that offers this new architecture, and takes its graphics processing power to the next level with the on-die 7660D graphics. When it comes to using this new processing power, it's also important to choose the right motherboard that fits the bill. The APU line of motherboards were designed to be affordable, but also offer high performance standards. Today we are going to be looking at a new motherboard from ECS: the A85F2-A Golden Motherboard. This motherboard will follow its A85X (hudson D4) chipset. ECS doesn't call this board the "Golden" board for no reason, and, as we take a closer look, you will see why.

As a kid I loved reading comics, especially the ones about super heroes. One of my favorites is the Phantom, an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. This is a popular feature adapted to several forms of media, including television, film and video games. It stars a costumed crime fighter operating from the fictional African country Bangla. The Phantom is the 21st in a line of crime fighters that originated in 1536, when the father of British sailor Christopher Walker was killed during a pirate attack. Swearing an oath to fight evil on the skull of his father's murderer, Christopher started the legacy of the Phantom that would be passed from father to son. Believing him to be immortal due to this legacy, his enemies gave the mysterious figure nicknames such as "The Ghost Who Walks", "The Man Who Cannot Die" and "Guardian of the Eastern Dark." Unlike many fictional costumed heroes, the Phantom does not have any supernatural powers, but instead relies on his strength, intelligence, and fearsome reputation for being an immortal ghost to defeat his foes. Today we have the pleasure of reading about another Phantom; only this legacy and legend was conceived and created by our friends at NZXT. The Phantom is reborn again only this time as The Phantom 820, an enthusiast steel full tower chassis, engineered to chill even the most demanding systems. The Phantom 820 is equipped with 200 mm and 140 mm fans in strategic positio...