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Chipset Duel - VIA vs. Nvidia nForce

Posted by michael on from the dueling-banjos dept.

msolnik writes: "Tom's Hardware has put 13 motherboards to the ultimate test in their lab. The outcome? By and large, the VIA KT266A chipset knocks the stuffing out of the Nvidia nForce 420D. True bright spots were the candidates sent in by Soltek and Soyo."

7 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Compiling linux kernel on windows ? by kraf · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's quite possible, look at this pic.

  2. nForce vs KT266A performance by Xugumad · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yes, the KT266A does show an approximate 5-10% lead on the nForce, however:

    • This is using an external graphics card - the GeForce 3. The nForce has a GeForce 2 MX equivalent, and I imagine that comparing the speed of the nForce to a KT266A with GeForce 2 MX would prove insightful, too.
    • The nForce, IMHO, is aimed at the OEM market. It has not just graphics, but sound integrated onto the motherboard, at a significant cost saving compared to buying them seperately.
    • I cannot find any reference to stability, and my experience of Via chipsets, compared to Intel and AMD chipsets, is that they are less stable and more likely to have problems (the last Via based computer I had to set up took two people 5 days to get working correctly, compared to AMD and Intel based computers which have worked perfectly from first boot up).

    If you're looking for raw speed, over all other concerns, yes the KT266A is probably for you, and would go well with a Creative Audigy and GeForce 3 Ti500. However if you're looking for a less powerful system, with a still respectable specification, the nForce is likely to work out a lot cheaper.

  3. RAID controllers... by Junta · · Score: 1, Informative

    I may be mistaken, but I have heard that most of these 'so-called' IDE raid controllers that motherboard manufacturer's put on their board are little more than typical IDE controllers. The manufacturer's get away with calling them RAID because they implement the RAID functionality in the Windows drivers. If this is true, I could care less about the inclusion of RAID controllers apart from having that many more ports on the MB. The only advantage is that you get a software RAID implementation for Win9x/ME, but under Linux, *BSD, and Win2k/XP there are provided facilities for doing software raid on arbitrary block devices. Additionally, I've heard the OS implementations are often both more efficient and more reliable than the drivers for these cheap IDE RAID controllers.

    Also, they mention the Shuttle MB having 4 DIMM slots, and not going far beyond that. Does anyone have experience with having all 4 banks in use? I have heard theat the Shuttle MB has problems with memory timings when all 4 are in use. Anyone want to enlighten me?

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    1. Re:RAID controllers... by Hamshrew · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wrong... the FastTrack series uses a BIOS implementation, true, but it offloads the striping calculations and such to the CPU. It's basically a BIOS trick that LOOKS like hardware RAID. For a true hardware RAID controller, you're looking at a few hundred even for IDE RAID, such as the Promise SuperTrack or, better yet, the 3ware Escalade series(which is supported in the 2.4 kernel series by default)

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  4. More Reviews... See www.3dnow.net by marcop · · Score: 4, Informative

    Check out the November '01 archives at www.3dnow.net for many reviews of KT266A mainboards and some nForce stuff.

    Some links from 3DNOW that I will highlight:

    VIA KT-266A Motherboard 3-Way Shootout


    VIA KT266A Initial Roundup - October 2001

  5. Re:Happy with the Shuttle, Booed MSI by curtis · · Score: 2, Informative

    I have filled all the banks -- I bought 4 DDR2100 256 meg dimms (CL 2.5) from Crucial and haven't had a single timing issue with them. I have just used the default SPD settings.

    This is good since using the same memory, I was having issues with the MSI board.

  6. Aces Review shows different results by Fizgig · · Score: 4, Informative

    Aces Hardware shows a different story. There, the nForce board from MSI seems to beat out the MSI K7T266 Pro 2 (KT266A chipset) in most of the benchmarks by a good margin. Not to say that I believe one over the other, but they do have widely different results.