what is diff between nf4ultra and via chipset?

[sigpop]

looking for 939 mobos with nf4 ultra, but non sli. slim pickings (why is that)? when will the others come out?

anyhow, it seems via has some alternative. how does it compare?

 

[superkdogg]

Nvidia boards get a little bit of a gaming boost when used with NV gfx cards. Some people feel that the NF3 is a better chipset especially for OCing, but I believe the jury is out on that one. One thing that seems to be consensus is that the AGP lock on the VIA boards can be finicky or outright fails at some point. My anecdotal experience is that this is less common on NF3.

As far as performance goes, they're very similar due to the memory controller being on the CPU. This used to account for most of the difference in motherboard performance and now it's all equal.

If you ask me, I'd pick mostly based on features and price, but that's just my opinion.

You may want to wait until NF4 comes out, I know a lot of people are waiting for it and then going to PCI-E and/or SLI. That's your choice as well.

The 939 selection is limited, and I am not sure why.

 

[DerKaiser]

looking for 939 mobos with nf4 ultra, but non sli. slim pickings (why is that)? when will the others come out?
anyhow, it seems via has some alternative. how does it compare?

The equivalent chipset is the Via K8T890. However, Via is having problems with shipping these in quantity. In the previews that I've seen, the two chipsets perform nearly identically. The differences are mainly marchitecture.

 

[carljanderson]

However, Via is having problems with shipping these in quantity.

ahhh.. so that explains why there is not yet a MSI Via KT890 based board announced yet..

(and seeing how long it has taken MSI to get the NF4 to market, we may not see the MSI K8T890's until August 2006)

 

[slpaulson]

Originally posted by: superkdogg
One thing that seems to be consensus is that the AGP lock on the VIA boards can be finicky or outright fails at some point. My anecdotal experience is that this is less common on NF3.

I think this depends more on the motherboard manufacturers than it does VIA...

VIA really does get a bad rap, even though Nvidia boards have had their problems too.
I haven't personally had any problems with either.

 

[ahurtt]

Originally posted by: sigpop
looking for 939 mobos with nf4 ultra, but non sli. slim pickings (why is that)?

so that all the impatient people with more money than sense like me who don't want to wait for the ultra's to come out in mass quantity will go ahead and blow their cash on the expensive SLI's. Once idiots like me stop paying $190-230 or more for Asus nForce 4 SLI boards, I bet a lot more alternatives will pop up. They just want to make sure they saturate the "stoopid idiot sales" market to maximize profit before they start cranking out the lower price stuff.

 

[ahurtt]

On a more serious note, and to better answer your question maybe, check out this article:

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2319

and here:

http://www.viatech.com/en/prod...890/index.jsp#features

and here:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20041015917263.html

Aside from those differences, the nVidia nForce 4 chipsets and motherboards actually exist.