Can someone give me laymens terms for these chipset differences?

[episodic]

Hi,

I consider myself 'fairly' competent, and I have recently built my own system. I am really enjoying anandtech's forums as well, but alot of things confuse me and this is one.

My board I'm using now is a VIA KT 400. I also see there are VIA KT 600's. There are also NFORCE boards, and there may even be others I'm not mentioning on the current AMD side.

Lets say I have an identical system, the only difference being one is a KT400, one is a KT600, and one is an NFORCE. What pluses or minuses am I likely to experience from each?

In layman's terms. Is one really 'better' than the other?

Thanks for your insight. . .

 

[mechBgon]

Performance-wise, nForce2 is the fastest and offers the most flexibility in overclocking. Here is the start of some benchmarks of a KT600-based board, compared to an nForce2 Ultra400 board: AnandTech's benchmarks of the Abit K7V. As you can see, the nForce2 boards are performing somewhat better with the same hardware kit.

Feature-wise, nForce2 offers an onboard-video option or no video, single- or dual-channel memory options (nF2 Ultra400 = dual-channel, nF2 400 = single-channel), and basic or deluxe southbridges (basic = no Firewire, only one onboard NIC, and no hardware audio processing). KT600 and KT400A also can be set up with different VIA southbridges, some of which have native Serial ATA and Firewire.

Cost-wise, nForce2 ranges from the low $60's to $120-ish and I think KT600 and KT400 start a little below that and range up to around $100.


Other than the KT400, KT400A, KT600 and nForce2, there are also the "classic" nForce boards, the SiS735 and rare SiS745 boards, and quite a few others (hit Newegg's AMD Motherboard section and look at the dropdown list of chipsets). VIA has just coughed up their KT880 chipset for the AthlonXP too.

Hope that helps