AMD's new Piledriver processor uses the new FM2 socket. With their track record of maintaining compatibility across processors and sockets, how does this new mobo marry up?

The battle between Asus and Gigabyte has traditionally been a heavyweight contest, though in recent years it's become more of a ritualised beating, as the Asus boards have consistently out-punched Gigabyte at every level.

The Intel H77 chipset is the little brother to the beefier Z77 Ivy Bridge chipset, and when we're talking about the P8H77-I we really do mean little.

When a company like Asus slaps 'Deluxe' moniker on a motherboard you can be fairly confident in it being feature-heavy.

The Republic of Gamers (RoG) has come out firing on the Intel Z77 chipset once again with the Asus RoG Maximus V Formula.

Intel's Ivy Bridge chips haven't been a revelation on the desktop, but the first 7 Series chipsets have been a lot more satisfying.

The P8Z68-V Pro was one of our all-time favourites of the last gen, this P8Z77-V Pro update promises much in the same vein.

A budget board with a premium chipset. Is that the most effective combination for achieving maximum bang-for-buck? Could be...

The launch of yet another Z68 board is puzzling with Intel's new Z77 chipset imminent, but this is all about PCIe 3.0 now.

The Rampage IV Formula is the first of the Republic of Gamers boards we've seen tailored to Intel's X79 specs and we were hoping for something a little more impressive. Especially given that £300+ price tag.

The P9X79 Pro is packed with up-to-the-minute features, such as PCIe 3.0 support, USB 3.0 boost technology, SSD caching, Asus's new USB BIOS Flashback, an updated UEFI BIOS and eSATA 6Gbps. So you're getting an awful lot of board for the price tag.

Asus's RoG boards are all very well if money's no object. Back in the real world, the Sabertooth series offers a much more realistic compromise between performance, features and price. The chipset cooling and overclocking support look very solid. We certainly squeezed some great numbers out of the new Core i7-3960X.

Does this AMD 990FX-based motherboard have the teeth to defeat Intel's Z68 chipset?

The Crosshair V has got just about everything you could wish for to build a high end system around. It's fast, endlessly teakable and even has a decent on board sound chip. The price isn't terrible either, unless you're a die hard bargain hunter that it.

The second tier of AMD's next-gen chipsets in Asus trim

The desktop Llano board in the lead at the moment

There are some exciting ideas in the Z68 package, but at least in the short term the results they yield in real-world application are a little underwhelming. Buy for the igpu implementation and power saving features, set up an SSD cache, but don't expect your technological world to be blown apart.

A safe and affordable motherboard for next-gen Intel chips

We had high expectations of this Fusion processor, especially when AMD changed its initial sales pitch and suggested Fusion APUs would take aim at lower end Intel netbooks based on the Core i3 processor. However, despite out-of-order instruction execution, the AMD E-350 is not dramatically more powerful than Atom.

Slapping a new brand name to give an old chip a leg up is a popular ruse in the PC industry. Do not, therefore, assume that the Asus M4A785TD-M EVO and its AMD 785G northbridge is necessarily old hat.

Riffing on the 'small, but perfectly formed' design ethos, Asus P8P67M-Pro is packing a lot into its teeny, tiny footprint.

When it comes to new PC components, odes to awesomeness are often overwrought. But take it from us, Intel's new Sandy Bridge desktop processors proved worthy of our finest prose. The Intel Core i5-2500K and Intel Core i7-2600K chips are preposterously quick. Of course, to get the best out of them what you need is a damn fine motherboard. For example, the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG.

The release of Intel's Clarkdale chip and its accompanying H55 chipset means new boards all round for Intel's LGA1156 boys. The shiny new P7H55-M from ASUS aims to offer a full-bloodied experience at little more than budget price and comes with a raft of overclocking tools to keep the most dedicated explorer of performance tweaks happy.

Can this excellent flagship Republic of Gamers board revive hardcore interest in HydraLogix technology?

Does this stylish and feature rich AMD motherboard offer good value for money?