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Foxconn’s P43A is one of the cheapest Intel motherboards here at just £72 including VAT, but it was a fast LGA775 board in our benchmarks. Despite its low price, it has two PCI Express x16 graphics card slots so you can fit two CrossFire-capable ATI graphics cards. However, this doesn’t boost games performance much, and dual-processor cards such as ATI’s Radeon HD4870 X2 are better value. The P43A has a PCI Express x1 slot and three PCI slots. MSI’s similarly priced P45 Neo-F has an extra PCI Express x1 slot, but the P43A has a coaxial S/PDIF port for connecting a surround-sound receiver so you don’t need to buy a PCI sound card if you want to use S/PDIF. Unusually, the P43A has a header for an IrDA infrared port, but most modern wireless peripherals use Bluetooth instead. More usefully, the four USB headers support up to two USB ports each, so you can use brackets to add up to eight extra USB ports to the four already present. Along with MSI’s P45 Neo-F, the P43A is the only Intel motherboard here without a RAID controller so you can’t link multiple hard disks together. There are no FireWire ports or headers, so you’ll have to add a PCI card if you want to connect FireWire peripherals, such as a DV video camera. There are also no eSATA ports, so you’ll have to use a SATA-to-eSATA bracket or a PCI card if you want to connect eSATA hard disks.
Despite the P43A’s lack of a RAID controller, it’s the best-value Intel motherboard here.
