
The selection of chipsets for Socket 462 (Socket A) is growing wider. Having presented an under-performer in the KT266 chipset , VIA followed up straightaway with a newcomer dubbed the KT266A . The only difference between it and its predecessor lies in the KT266A's memory interface, which was designed to be a real speed demon. Rumor has it that it has been copied from the SiS 735 . However, there's no official statement to that effect - not from VIA itself, anyway.
The idea behind it, however, is sound: until recently, the benchmark results had been labeling the SiS 735 the best performer with AMD Athlon & Duron. The VIA Apollo KT266A chipset is clearly intended for use en masse, while the Taiwanese competition SiS and ALi have a much smaller slice of the pie, installing considerably fewer chipsets.
Now there's a new kid on the block joining the three Far East incumbents: Nvidia, well known for its graphics chips, is offering a highly integrated chipset by the name of nForce . It's available in various flavors, the most important difference being support for either single or dual-channel memory. Both of the boards we tested use the nForce 420D (formerly known as Crush 12), which has optimum performance with classic DDR SDRAM in a dual-channel configuration.
- Chipset Duel - VIA Vs. Nvidia
- VIA Changes Their Naming Convention
- 12 Boards With VIA KT266A - Fastest Chipset For AMD & Duron
- Asus A7V266-E - No Surprises Here
- Azza 366A-AV - Plain Jane
- Chaintech CT-7VJDA- Ideal For Overclocking
- DFI AD70-SR - Inexpensive Alternative
- Epox EP-8KHA+ - Overclocking On Shaky Ground
- Gigabyte GA-7VTXH - Problems With Dual-BIOS
- MSI K7T266 Pro2 (MS-6380) - Only Skin-Deep
- QDI KD7-A (KuDoz 7) - Standard OEM Board
- Soltek SL-75DRV2 - The Overclocking King
- Soyo SY-K7V (Dragon Plus!): Well-Deserved Winner
- Shuttle AK31 V3.1 - Lackluster
- 2 Boards With Nvidia nForce 420D - Disappointing
- MSI K7N420 Pro - Targeting The End Consumer
- Test Setup: Comparing 14 Motherboards
- OpenGL Performance: Quake 3 Arena
- Direct3D Performance: Unreal Tournament
- MP3 Audio Encoding: Lame MP3
- Office Performance: Sysmark 2000
- 3D Rendering Performance: SPECviewperf
- Up Close & Personal: Features For All Boards Tested
- Up Close & Personal: Features For All Boards Tested, Continued
- Conclusion: KT266A Trounces nForce 420D - Soltek Is Front-runner