ASRock 880G Extreme3 & 890FX Deluxe3

ASRock has long been a motherboard vendor that produced more cost-effective products than the likes of ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, and others while these motherboards have still boasted a modest set of features with reputable manufacturing quality. As time has passed, ASRock continues making motherboards cheaper than the competition, but their motherboards continue to become more and more appealing with their greater set of features and capabilities. Both the ASRock 880G Extreme3 and 890FX Deluxe3 are impressive products with both boasting more than enough Serial ATA 3.0, eSATA 3.0, and USB 3.0 ports while also boasting plenty of PCI Express slots, a modest and easy set of overclocking functions from the BIOS, heatpipe cooling, and other great features.

The only major complaint we have about either motherboard is that the ASRock 890FX Deluxe3 would not work with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and its Linux 2.6.32 kernel, but that issue can be absolved by upgrading to the still-in-development Ubuntu 10.10 release with the Linux 2.6.35 kernel. This may also be an issue more with the 890FX chipset than a problem specific to ASRock.

The ASRock 890FX Deluxe3 can be found for about $150 USD at NewEgg (or nearly $190 at Amazon), which from NewEgg does make it one of the cheapest AMD 890FX motherboards available while boasting not a bad set of features at all. The 880G Extreme3 motherboard with its integrated Radeon HD 4250 graphics can be found for about $110 USD at NewEgg or Amazon.