And off we go! Now that Intel has officially outed its Z68 Express chipset, the announcements from hardware vendors pitching new products are rolling in. One of those is from MSI who just unveiled a couple of Z68 motherboards (socket 1155), one of which features support for both CrossFireX and SLI.

You've heard that big things come in small packages, and after peering over the spec sheet for Zotac's new Fusion ITX Wi-Fi A-series motherboard, we have no reason to doubt the wisdom in that statement. This also happens to be Zotac's first Fusion motherboard, so perhaps the company was looking to make a statement. Mission accomplished.

Whenever AMD or Intel introduce a new processor, there's the question of whether or not it will work in your existing motherboard, and if not, which one(s) will it work with? The answer isn't always as obvious as a pin count, especially with the current generation of AMD parts. To help alleviate any confusion over AMD's next generation CPUs for current AMD 800/700 series chipset motherboards, Gigabyte announced it's the first to market with AM3+ "Black Socket" motherboards, giving users at-a-glance confirmation that everything's kosher.

Remember when you could buy a high-end AMD motherboard for around a C-note? You have to think all the way back to the Barton glory days, when the Asus A7N8X Deluxe and Abit NF7-S v2 dominated any talk of bang-for-buck ratios. But that was a long time ago, and if you want a top-of-the-line motherboard today, you're looking at spending north of $200, particularly if you're invested with Intel. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like mobo prices are coming down anytime soon, and in fact they may be on the rise.