New and Improved: NVIDIA nForce3 250 Gb Chipset

Athlon64 Chipsets Compared

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Manufacturer NVIDIA Corp. NVIDIA Corp. SiS VIA Technologies
Northbridge nForce3 1501309 Ball BGA0.15 µm nForce3 250 Gb1309 Ball BGA0.15 µm SiS 755698 Ball BGA0.22 µm K8T800578 Ball BGA0.22 µm
Southbridge Integrated Integrated SiS 964 VT8237539 Ball BGA
Interconnect StreamThru StreamThru MuTIOL 1 GB/swith HyperStreaming 8X V-Link 533 MB/s
AGP 3.0 / AGP 8x 3.0 / AGP 8x 3.0 / AGP 8x 3.0 / AGP 8x
Fixer AGP/ PCI clock for overclocking yes yes yes no
System Speed / Hyper Transport 8 Bit, 600 MHz Up ; 16 Bit, 800 MHz Down 16 Bit, 800 MHz Up & Down 16 Bit, 800 MHz Up & Down 16 Bit, 800 MHz Up & Down
Memory Type DDR SDRAM DDR SDRAM DDR SDRAM DDR SDRAM
Memory Speed DDR266/333/400 DDR266/333/400 DDR266/333/400 DDR266/333/400
Max. Memory 4096 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB 4096 MB
PCI Slots 6x 32 Bit PCI 2.3 6x 32 Bit PCI 2.3 6x 32 Bit PCI 2.3 6x 32 Bit PCI 2.3PCI-X using VIA VPX2
IDE Interface 2 Ports U-ATA/133 2 Ports U-ATA/133 2 Ports U-ATA/133 2 Ports U-ATA/133
Serial ATA - 4 Ports 2 Ports DriveStation Controller, 2 Ports SATA-150 &SATAlite Interface for 2 additional SATA ports
RAID - RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1 RAID 0, RAID 1 RAID 0, RAID 1 (SATA only)
USB Ports - 6x USB 2.0/1.1480 MBit/s 8x USB 2.0/1.1480 MBit/s 8x USB 2.0/1.1480 MBit/s
Audio AC97 2.1 AC97 2.1 AC97 2.1 AC97 2.1 or PCIVIA Vinyl Audio
Network 10/100 NVIDIA MAC 10/100/1000 NVIDIA MAC with Firewall 10/100 MAC Interface VIA Gigabit Ethernet Interface or 10/100 MAC
Drivers nForce Unified Driver & ForceWare Suite nForce Unified Driver & ForceWare Suite Dedicated AGP & IDE drivers Unified Hyperion 4in1 Drivers

Test System

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Processor
Socket 754 Athlon 64 3200+ (2000 MHz, 1 MB L2 Cache)
Memory
AMD Athlon 64 2x Corsair TwinX CMX512-3500C2 (XMS3502 V1.1)512 MB per DIMMCL 2.0 - tRCD 2/3 - tRP 2 - tRAS 5
Motherboards
NVIDIA nForce3 150 Gigabyte KA-8NNXP Rev. 1.0BIOS : F12 (2010 MHz)
NVIDIA nForcee 250 Gb MSI K8N Neo MS-7030, Rev. 1.0BIOS : 1.13 (2009 MHz)
SiS 755 SiS 755 Reference BoardBIOS : n/a (2010 MHz)
VIA K8T800 MSI K8T Neo MS-6702, Rev. 1.0BIOS : 1.4 (2001 MHz)
System Hardware
Graphics Card Asus A9800XT/DVD, Rev. 1.01GPU : ATI Radeon 9800XT, 412 MHz Chip ClockMemory : 128 MB DDR-SDRAM, 365 MHz Chip Clock
Sound Card Terratec Aureon 7.1 Space
Hard Drive Western Digital WD800JB, 80 GB80 GB Per Platter, 7200 rpm, 8 MB Cache
Network Controllers 3COM 3C996B-T PCI-X Controller on Dual Xeon 2.8 GHzfor network testing
Software
Chipset Software SiS AGP Driver 1.17, IDE Driver 2.03NVIDIA Platform Driver 4.09VIA Hyperion 4in1 Ver. 4.51
Graphics Driver ATI Catalyst 4.1 (7.97 / 6.14.10.6414)
Network Drivers Broadcom BCM5705 Driver Build 7.35a
DirectX Version 9.0b
OS Windows XP Professional 5.1.2600, Service Pack 1
Patrick Schmid
Editor-in-Chief (2005-2006)

Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.