EPoX 9NDA3+ (NVIDIA nForce3 Ultra) vs. ABIT AV8 3rd Eye (VIA K8T800Pro) - Socket 939 Shootout

Today we have 2 motherboards sporting AMD’s Socket 939. The first, Abit’s AV8 3rd Eye, uses Via’s K8T800Pro chipset. The second, Epox’s 9NDA3+, uses the Nvidia Nforce 3 Ultra. We’re pitting these two together to see which works out the better – whilst both Via and Nvidia have announced successors to the chipsets we’re working with here, you’ll still be hard pressed to actually buy them.

..When considering the Epox, once the best performance settings were found it remained stable for the entire testing session. The Nvidia firewall software is pleasure to work with and didn’t bother me once after I spent all of 30 seconds setting it up. The 4 SATA ports are a definite welcome bonus, even if two are almost uselessly placed, because very few non PCIe chipset boards offer 4 SATA ports as standard: Intel’s ICH5 and VIA’s VT8237 both only support 2 SATA ports. The addition of 8 channel sound as well as optical and digital SPDIF is also a good inclusion. Performance is extremely good, and compared to the Nvidia NForce 4 reference board, doesn’t make an upgrade seem worth it yet.

The Abit board comes in at around £80 here in the UK, with the Epox board around £90. There’s little difference in the price / performance ratio at these prices. If you are choosing between NForce 3 Ultra and K8T800 Pro chipsets, it would be advisable to base your choice on board peripherals, rather than performance, because they are both so similarly matched. If you’re choosing between these two boards, we have to say that if raw performance and tweaking are your thing, then the Abit is for you. If you could happily trade some of those tweaks for a better sound system, go with the Epox.

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Abit v Epox - Socket 939