GIGABYTE - Gigabyte K8NSNXP NVIDIA nForce3 250 Motherboard Review

Legion Hardware has reviewed the Gigabyte K8NSNXP nForce3 250 motherboard. Performance tests compare Gigabyte’s nForce3 150 model, the K8NNXP, and two VIA K8T800 boards (Gigabyte K8VNXP, ASUS K8V Deluxe):

As you would expect from a reasonably high end Gigabyte motherboard, the K8NSNXP comes loaded with just about every feature possible. The list of integrated peripherals includes; a GigaRAID ATA133 RAID controller, Texas Instruments IEEE1394b controller, Silicon Image sil3512 controller, Dual LAN, and a Realtek ALC850 Audio AC’97 Codec. The nForce3 250 chipset supports a total of four Parallel ATA100/133 drives via the primary and secondary IDE bus.
The chipset also boasts support for two Serial ATA150 drives with RAID 0+1 disk striping and mirroring support. The connectivity side of the chipset supports a single 10/100/1000 NVIDIA IEEE 802.3 Media Access Control (MAC). The 10/100 interface in this case is supported via the ICS 1883 LAN PHY chip, where as the Gigabit support comes from the Marvell 8001 Gigabit Ethernet controller. This gives the K8NSNXP a Dual LAN function, making it ideal for a home gateway.

…The impressive performance of this motherboard/chipset is evident in the past few benchmarks. The K8NSNXP is certainly a far superior solution to the K8NNXP. There were just a few tests that showed the K8T800 boards in the lead and at this stage NVIDIA look to have taken the performance crown from VIA. The board’s stability was also very impressive, as you would only naturally expect from a Gigabyte solution.

…There really is just one key difference between the three tested Gigabyte Athlon64 motherboards, and this is the chipset that they utilize. While there are obviously differences, as neither the K8T800 or nForce3 250 chipset is remotely alike in design, their basic functions are the same. As I have said time and time again with these AMD64 chipsets, the memory controller is integrated into the processor and there is little left up to the chipsets performance wise. At the end of the day the decision between the K8NSNXP and the K8VNXP is really up to the user. This decision should really be quite easy; most users will go with their preferred chipset maker, whether this be NVIDIA or VIA.

Legion Hardware
Gigabyte K8NSNXP NVIDIA nForce3 250 Motherboard Review