To AMD users: why did you prefer nForce2 to kt400 or kt400a?

[squidman]

 

[squidman]

kt 400a looks a tad more kickass than nForce2.

 

[Schadenfroh]

are you a heretic?

 

[BD2003]

Where is the option for all of the above?

 

[McCarthy]

Where's the option for "I don't"

Went from a VIA KT133A board to this nForce2, have had a number of problems. Sure, nForce may be faster in benchmarks (for what they're worth anymore), but for setup, compatability and day to day actual use it's hard to take two otherwise identical boards and say the nForce chipseted one is superior to the one with a VIA chipset.

 

[HappyCracker]

I love my KT400. It's stable. The advantage to nForce2 is overclocking and perhaps dual channel, but even that is overrated IMO

 

[magomago]

Soundstorm + Extra features. And I'm so happy I pluncked down that 150 for my asus back last November. Yeah it was hell with crappy bioses but in the end it is all worth it.

or close to it - once Nvidia freaking releases new drivers I'll be content

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I was after it for overclocking and the IGP to make a great ultra budget F@H/family rig for my home network and I couldn't be happier with the decision. Furthermore I haven't suffered through all the grief some NF2 users have had and thank the 6P's and choosing a Soltek for that :beer:

 

[Megatomic]

It's a toss up between DCDDR and Soundstorm for me but in the end I voted for DCDDR.

For the record, I only upgraded from my KT333 board for official Barton support. When I gave up on my 8K3A+ there was no Barton support at all...

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

It was the Dual-Channel that did it for me, although all the onboard stuff (LAN, etc.) helped tip it in favor as well. The IGP wasn't much of an issue in my decision-making, and I (eventually) plan on getting an Audigy 2 Platinum EX, so the SoundStorm is just an "in-between" that works great.

 

[mechBgon]

You've left out the big one for many people: fully-independent FSB adjustment with no impact on the PCI bus speed. No fussing with dividers and ratios to overclock without destroying one's hard drive.

Then there's DDR400 support. KT400? One DIMM, officially speaking. nForce2? Three DIMMs, both officially and in practice.

Then there's 400MHz FSB support. KT400? Haha, did you think the "400" meant... oh, you did? Good one, huh? nForce2? Sure, with a BIOS update when the time came.

Then there's PCI performance. I had a KT333 board and no way could I get more than 72Mb/sec throughput on the PCI bus. With nForce and nForce2, I can hit over 120Mb/sec from my SCSI card to the PCI bus, which is about the practical limit for PCI when you factor in overhead. Did KT400 fix that? I don't know, but somehow I doubt it. I did give both Asus and VIA detailed bug reports, but never got an acknowlegement.

Dual-channel memory got people up in arms since they were initially expecting huge performance boosts, forgetting that even in single-channel mode, nForce2 was already cleaning KT400's clock. Oh wait, you were one of them :Q no offense meant! (pulls foot out of mouth ) Soon we will have some single-channel nForce2 boards to look at.

 

[bgeh]

Originally posted by: DAPUNISHER
I was after it for overclocking and the IGP to make a great ultra budget F@H/family rig for my home network and I couldn't be happier with the decision. Furthermore I haven't suffered through all the grief some NF2 users have had and thank the 6P's and choosing a Soltek for that :beer:

same here......the overclocking features got me

 

[hans007]

better sound. also i had really soured on via after my super7 mvp and then kt133 chipset machines. nvidia at least doesnt make pieces of crap.


that and i wanted the superior integrated video which i actually use .

for o/cers nforce2s can unlock multipliers.

 

[Sunner]

I got an A7N8X(non Deluxe) for the following reasons, in no particular order:
nForce2 has got a good reputation for stability and performance
Good price
Onboard LAN
Good for overclocking, partly cause of the independant FSB adjustments, and partly cause it unlocks TBred B's so I can just change the multiplier to my hearts content.
Just an overall kickass board, my best since the venerable P2B(440BX) so far.

 

[Confused]

LOL @ mechBgon!


But, however, he did actually mention everything that made me go for the nForce2 board. I didn't even consider a KT400 board back in February...the only dilemma was which nf2 board to go for!!


Confused

 

[ElFenix]

PCI lock it is.

the albatron kt400 board i got with a fry's combo is pretty good so far.

 

[Ranulf]

Hmm, probably the 400mhz bus aka it meant it was somewhat future proof for the next 1.5-2 years (I can upgrade it to a faster barton).
Its not a VIA and all its problems (granted many have had nf2 probs, luckily I havent).

 

[chocoruacal]

PCI lock....better performance....hardware Dolby sound....400mhz FSB....isn't produced by VIA....geez....can't think of a single reason why I chose nForce2

I've owned kt400 as well. Really....nothing terrible about the board....it just wasn't what I was expecting when I switched from Intel to AMD. I was SERIOUSLY considering selling off all my AMD stuff, but nForce2 completely changed my mind about that, and its the only chipset I'll use in my AMD client builds now.

 

[Macro2]

VIA got slack and now we are punishing them. hehe

They seem to be getting their act back together but without dual channel....humm...

 

[XBoxLPU]

Nforce 2. It is not a VIA Chipset ( they suck imo )

KT600 offers 400 FSB support

 

[XBoxLPU]

by the way

Dual ddr does not offer but ~5% gain ( IIRCC ) in most instances.It is not that much of a performance gain as it seems With onboard video, it helps out a lot.

 

[squidman]

This poll was really interesting for me, becasue i wanted to see how many people got attracted to this double channel thing. It was for my marketing project, which i am going to conclude tonight, in an hour or so.
Yes, when i was upgrading, i was gonna actually buy p4 2.4b and p4800 (or whatever, 865 by ASUS). But then, when i was looking at mobos, i see: Asus a7n8x - DOUBLE CHANNEL, on-board 5.1 hardware audio, Lightning fast! Hehe, the box got me. Boy was i upset to find out that i could only get 2.6 g/s with 2700 mem... But oh well, still a kickass board!

 

[Markfw]

I didn't even vote, since none of the choices applied. I was looking for a new mobo, got a kt400, and it had problems running my XP2700 and Radeon 9500pro. As I kept figuring out that my 9500 was bad, I eventually got a 9700 pro, and still had problems. Then I researched mobos and found the nforce2 was supposed to be the best, and even though I do not like nvidia video cards, I thought I would try the mobo. I like my ASUS A7N8X deluxe, but continue to have driver problems, even had to remove the IDE drivers and use the Microsoft ones. They might make good video drivers, but their mobo ones stink !

As far as the poll, the first 4 all apply for me, but definitely NOT number 5.

 

[NTB]

All the onboard goodies, mostly - I'm going to be building my first nforce2-based machine this weekend when the parts come in. It is a system for my girlfriend, so I had 2 main goals in mind: Keep costs down as much as possible and still giver her a fast, easily-upgradeable system. So I ended up with an Epox 8RGA+, an Athlon XP 1700+, and 512MB PC2700 RAM. I realize I could have cut corners a little bit and gotten cheaper stuff, but the extra few bucks was worth it:

-good onboard audio (no soundcard needed)
-decent onboard video (can play older games OK, newer ones will need a "real" AGP card)
-onboard LAN
-onboard USB2 and Firewire
-6 open PCI slots
-AGP port for later upgrades
-166 & 200 FSB support for later chips

All for $99 (board only, RAM and CPU added ~$120)

Oh, and did I mention that the onboard video allows you to use nvidia's twinview? 2 VGA ports

Nate

 

[peonyu]

""and partly cause it unlocks TBred B's so I can just change the multiplier to my hearts content.""

My Kt400 board did the same thing.


The board I have is a Aopen KT400 board and I like it, its been perfectly stable and overclocks extremely well [1700+-2300mhz], it has onboard lan & usb 2.0 and it cost about $50; so the comparisons here really are not very fair. Your comparing more expensive boards to cheaper ones so you get wat you pay for.

Anyways I got a question, the boards are called 'kt400', and my Mobo has a jumper for 400mhz fsb so im thinking of getting ddr400 to run it at 400, but I hear that it doesnt work or something? Why not, the board has the option but I keep hearing it cant but I never get a explanation of why it cant..it doesnt make sense