Special cheap motherboard bundles

Singapore
You won't find this Matsonic board anywhere on the internet, not even on Matsonic's website. Well almost. The MS8158EC is special in that it has an onboard CPU, not any CPU but an Athlon XP 1700+, which sets it apart from other integrated motherboards which usually bundle nothing more than old Via C3's or Durons. I cannot certify though whether the CPU is soldered onboard or simply plugged in. Matsonic has for this purposed renamed the AMD XP 1700+ to AMD Pro3000+, which is pretty useless and has given rise to a number of dodgy sales on Ebay where suspicious sellers are selling boards with these components and arguing that they will outperform an Athlon 3000+.

At S$165 though, it is cheaper than any other bundles by at least 15%. If you want to build yourself a cheap rig, this is probably the way to go. The motherboard features a VIA ProSavage KM266 as well as two DIMM slots. Interestingly the board also has an AGP slot, which supports up to AGP 4X. Otherwise, you will have to use the onboard S3 ProSavage 8 which uses onboard memory.

You also get two PCI and one CNR slots. The micro-ATX MS8158EC also integrates a 2.1 AC97 codec sound module as well as LAN connectivity. The rest of I/O consists of six USB ports, the usual VGA/Serial/Parallel and also keyboard/mouse. It is on sale at Bell Systems Electronics in Singapore.

USA
Probably the better deal you can get yourself in the US comes from Partpc.com. It is selling a Biostar bundle for only $88, only £48, arguably, the cheapest new Athlon bundle in the US. No corners have been cut though. You get your processor fan and a superb motherboard. The Biostar M7NCD is based on a Nvidia nForce2 400 + MCP, not your usual run-of-mill chipset. It supports 400MHz FSB and comes with two DIMM slots. Also in the description, is five PCI expansion slots and one AGP slot. No integrated motherboard which might be a good thing if you're planning a decent entry level playing rig. The board should come with NAV and Ghost as software.

Other specs include six USB 2.0 ports, Realtek 10/100MBps LAN and a Realtek ALC650 5.1 channel AC97 Codec sound. You can download the latest bios and get yourself a decent overclocker for very cheap. If the XP1700+ CPU bundled was luckily a t-bred one, then you will hopefully be able to get quite a good overclocking by increasing the voltage and the FSB. At overclockers.com, a fellow geeker got 2GHz out of a processor.

France
Actualis provides us with a superb bundle comprising of an Asrock K7S8X R3.0 and an AMD Sempron 2200+ CPU for only €71.99. The motherboard is an ATX one and features three DDR slots supporting up to DDR400, five PCI slots and one AGP 8X one. You will also get 400MHz support - quite handy for overclocking as well as a host of overclocking friendly features known as Hybrid booster - CPU multiplier, Vcore adjustment, frequency stepless control, U-Cop and Boot Failure Guard.

A 5.1 AC97 codec sound module, six USB 2.0 ports and 10/100MBPs LAN complete the classic list of components. The Sempron 2200+ processor is a 333MHz FSB socket A processor running at 1500MHz with 256KB cache. It is a t-bred by nature and has been etched on a 130nm process. This little baby uses 1.6v to power itself. It is a good overlcoker as one might guess but to make good use of its power, you should invest wisely in a proper HSF.

UK
Just a quick note to tell you that the better deals that you will get in UK on motherboard bundles - anyone, not restricted to AMD - comes from ebuyer.com, where you can get an Athlon XP 2000+ with stock HSF and a PCChips M848ALU motherboard for a mere £62 inc VAT. The XP2000+ is a thoroughbred coming with 256KB cache and 266MHz FSB, reviewers from ebuyer point out that these processors can overclock quite easily at 160MHz to 2GHz.

Moreover, the partner motherboard features a SIS748 chipset with three DDR slots and six USB ports. The PC Chips board also has goodies like six channel sond card and 400MHz support. All in all, an excellent bundle if you want to get yourself a basic but adequate PC. µ