i think that practically all boards (with a bios update at least) supp. a 400fsb. this is only presently needed for the AMD Athlon XP 3200+, but i guess higher athlons wil use this 400mhz fsb. however it may be debaitable whether ppl will be upgrading much more on the soket 462 platform, with the 700ish-pin amd opterons/athlon 64's coming out soon.
I haven't used Abit or Asus much so i cant really tell you my opinion on them, however my m8 has had Abit and Asus and they have always been fast, reliable and overclockable for him. The reason i have not bought a board by them is because i find that boards made by EPoX, MSI or Gigabyte have more features although they might be released later. The MSI board is a good choice, well balanced features, that nice red PCB and a reasonable price. i woulda boought it if i didn't go for the Gigabyte 7NNXP (simply for features) in my latest system. I also have an EPoX board running in this one and it has been very good, nice layout, good selection of features i wanted (lotsa raid on a cheapish board when the only other boards with 2 raid also has loadsa other features i didnt want) and of course the infamous debugging lights!
The VIA KT400 is made by VIA, a very big (and the main) chipset manufacturer, nice chipset, they will be releasing (/have released) the KT600, but its not on many/any boards yet, which is the same as the 400a except for official FSB support and the southbridge its paired with has 2 SATA native.
The nForce 2 chipset is the second instalment of a somewhat revolutionary chipset (the nForce1) made by nVidia, the graphics chip company. It is generally considered faster than the currently available VIA solutions, and right now i would reccommend it to anyone, although the 2 native SATA channels on the KT600 may win the battle for VIA over nVidia. The nForce chipset was originally designed to provide a good performing onboard graphics chipset, with all the other features of current chipsets. the nForce therefore comes in 2 versions, with onboard graphics (basically an onboard GeForce 4 MX) one with graphics, the IGP northbridge, and one without for those who just want a fast chipset, the SPP notherbridge. The latest stepping is the nForce 2 ultra-400 - make sure you get a board with the latest stepping on it. All the msi boards listed on their
website have been updated to the ultra 400 northbridge.
There are 2 main models of the MSI nForce2 board, the K7N2G-L and the K7N2G-L Delta. The K7N2G is the IGP board, with onboard graphics, otherwise i think its the same as the delta. The K7N2G Delta is the SPP version, without graphics. If either of the Delta or the K7N2G are suffixed with the -ILSR (instead of -L) i.e "K7N2G-ILSR" or "K7N2G-ILSR Delta" it means they have a MCP2-T southbridge, which adds the 6-channel sound dolby digital, serial ata and firewire. With just the -L suffix they only have the MCP2 southbridge, with none of these features.
I would get the SPP board, the K7NG-ILSR Delta, the ILSR with the extra features if i were you. Then get an AGP card for yer graphics. but definetely buy the ILSR version, cos even if you don't think you'll use the features it wil b "tres cool".
there ya go. have fun + good luck
Email me wiv anything else ya want
Facebook
Twitter