How long before this nForce3 is out ?

[Diabolus]

I am curious... I'm waiting on a tax return to build my AMD64 system and I would *like* to have the best possible at the time I'm buying (within reason, obviously). How long before we see these nForce3 boards, and as per your gut instinct... do you think it will outperform the VIA in terms of gaming?

Thanks all!

 

[loafbred]

There are some boards with nForce3-150 already being sold, and some with nForce3-250 may be out now. I have the 150 chipset. It has single-channel memory, and memory bandwidth is similar to nForce2 with dual-channel. I got the Chaintech ZNF3-150 board because it has AGP frequency lock and it works well with Mushkin PC3500 Level II RAM (which I already had). I also got an A64 3200+ at the same time, and it's running at 10*220 (multiplier locked at 10) with 1.520v core and 2.75v dimm, memory timings 2-3-3-7. It's a nice improvement over the Abit NF7 and mobile 2400+ at 2200 that I had before.

From what I've read, the VIA boards score a little better than nForce3, but they don't have AGP lock.