In the month since AMD launched the Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 FX-51 processors we’ve begun to see boards based on both the nForce3 150 and VIA K8T800 chipset appearing on the market.  While we’ve already looked at the nForce3 150 Professional in our original AMD64 review and again in our Micro Pro OEM review, this is our first look at a board based on VIA K8T800.  Given the less-then sterling reputation VIA’s first-generation chipsets have acquired we’re not sure what to expect, but if there’s one company we’d trust to take a flaky chipset and build a stable board, its ASUS.

Since this is our first look at a VIA K8T800 board lets take a moment and examine how this chipset differs from the nForce 3 150. 

Hyper Transport Linkages:  K8T800 Leaves nForce3 150 (Theoretically) Pounding Sand:

One major difference between Athlon 64 systems and their AthlonXP and P4 counterparts is that the use of Hyper Transport as a linkage system.  The Hyper Transport links in the nForce3 150 chipset run at 600 MHz DDR and move 16-bits of data downstream / 8 bits upstream simultaneously, for a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 3.6 GB/s.  Not bad at all, but it doesn’t compare well to the K8T800.

VIA’s new chipset uses an 800 MHz DDR connection and moves 16-bits of data upstream and downstream simultaneously, for a maximum theoretical bandwidth of 6.4 GB/s.  This is a significantly larger amount of bandwidth.  The V-Map linkage between northbridge and southbridge  offers 533 MB/s of bandwidth, which gives the SATA RAID system a boost when compared to the hit the system would take running over the PCI bus.

The K8T800’s integrated SATA and higher northbridge bandwidth give it a theoretical advantage over the NF3 150, but this wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a strong theoretical advantage whither or die completely in the harsh reality of testing.  Lets take a look at first the ASUS K8V Deluxe specifically and then the performance between the two for some in-depth comparison on whether or not NVIDIA or VIA is going to take top honors in this contest.

Board Layout:

The K8V has a fairly unassuming layout as motherboards go.  The ATX power connector is near the right-hand side of the board, but is farther south then we like to see, and a bit too close to the RAM.  Running a thick bundle of cables that close to the RAM is going to impede airflow in a case.  The 12V auxiliary connector, however, is well placed in the upper-left-hand corner of the board. ASUS provides a reasonable amount of room between AGP and RAM slots (which we like quite a bit) and manages to do so without sacrificing a PCI slot?though PCI slot 5 and ASUS’ wireless card slot are not capable of being used together. 

The two IDE slots are set high on the board while the floppy connector sits lower with the third IDE port just below it.  Four SATA ports (two powered by the VIA 8237 controller, two by the Promise 20376 controller) round out the board’s storage and optical connectivity options.  The backplate is also fairly non-descript, rounded out by four USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE 1394 out, your standard three-speaker ports, a single serial and parallel port, and an SPDIF out.

The K8V Deluxe may be fairly non-descript and unexciting from a layout perspective, but there’s a number of features built into this board that make it one to watch.  Lets take a look under the hood and see what ASUS’ latest Athlon 64 board is packing.

next >

---

• Distinguishing Features (1 of 2)
• Benchmarks, Conclusion (2 of 2)