We would have liked to use an Intel G33 chipset motherboard, but the only model we had at our disposal was an early engineering sample. Hence we used the same platforms that powered the sub-$200 processors in the article "Which Is The Best Mainstream CPU?".

AMD: MSI K9AGM2 With AMD 690 Chipset

The AMD motherboard was a MSI K9AGM2, which utilizes the AMD 690 chipset. It is a fully featured MicroATX motherboard, but it only supports two DDR2 DIMMs, with PCI Express x16, PCI Express x1 and two additional 32-bit PCI slots. It has four SATA/300 ports, supports basic RAID modes, and is passively cooled. Thanks to HDMI and D-sub display ports it is also suitable for home theater systems.