What is the difference between the nforce 420D and 415D?

[gipper]

What are the differences in the nforce 420 and 415 chipsets? How do these chipsets compare performance wise to the kt333?

 

[Athlon4all]

420=Int. GF2 MX graphics
415=No GF2MX Graphics, Twinbank
220= Int. GF2 MX, no Twinbank

Performance vs KT333 is 5% or less, not noticeable really.

 

[gipper]

So I'm reading this as the 415 is just the 420 sans gpu section of the chip. So getting the 415 would nullify the whole point of buying the nForce for me which is to skimp out and not have to buy a seperate video card, sound card or lan card. Please correct me if I'm wrong in these assertions. Thanks for the help.

 

[Athlon4all]

So I'm reading this as the 415 is just the 420 sans gpu section of the chip. So getting the 415 would nullify the whole point of buying the nForce for me which is to skimp out and not have to buy a seperate video card, sound card or lan card. Please correct me if I'm wrong in these assertions. Thanks for the help.

Yes, except the 415 does still have the On-Board LAN and nForce APU. Personally, if you don't need extensive On-board features (ie no USB2, no RAID, no Firewire, just sound and LAN), then I say go MSi K7N415 Pro or Asus A7N266-C (although I don't think it has LAN, what was Asus thinking:roll. But, if you need more features then nForce 2 is coming which will have USB2, ATA/133 and other updated features.

 

[gipper]

The point of going with the nforce is for the built in features. I'd go with a via kt333 solution otherwise. So just two more questions and thanks so much for clarifying all this for me.

What boards would have all the built in features video, audio, lan?

What is the audio difference between the 420 and 420D as in does the 420 still have some sort of audio output?

 

[Athlon4all]

What boards would have all the built in features video, audio, lan?

MSi's K7N420 Pro has Sound and LAN and video, Abit's NV7m has all 3, Asus A7N266-E has all 3, lets see, and then lets see, I think that just about does it. In the group of 415-D boards, Asus' has only sound, Abit's NV7-133R has Sound, LAN, USB2, and RAID, MSi's K7N415 Pro has Sound and LAN. I think thats about all of them.

What is the audio difference between the 420 and 420D as in does the 420 still have some sort of audio output?

Well, the non-D version has no Dolby Digital 5.1 Support while the D version does. However, I have yet to see a non-D version on the market with the exception of Asus' A7N266.

 

[gipper]

thank you very, very much. You've been a terrific help with this. As for the outcome: From your information, and some researching online, I think my new budget system is:

abit nv7m
wd 7200rpm 60gb
256 crucial
athlon xp 1900+
old burner I have sitting around 2x4x6
windows xp professional (because I have it)

In case you were interested or would just like to make any more suggestions. Looks like I'm pretty much done though. That's going to put me in right at 300 to 350. That would be awesome for a more than current setup on a budget, no.

 

[Athlon4all]

Hmmm, that'll be a good budget system for sure I doubt you could get anything faster for the Price

 

[Kingofcomputer]

Go for 415D and a GF3 Ti200 or GF4 4200.
I'd go for nForce 415D for twin bank, nForce has many innovative designs and optimized better for AMD and DDR *in theory*, especially the faster internal connection between north bridge and south bridge, between bridge and the sound, network *in theory*.

VIA chipset is quite boring, still the old type north bridge and south bridge design.

SIS single chip is better than north and south bridge *in theory* too.