SOLTEK - nForce2 400: Soltek NV400-64 Review

Ryan Shrout takes a look at the Soltek NV400-64 motherboard powered by NVIDIA’s new nForce2 400 SPP with single channel memory support. The benchmark results against an nForce2 Ultra 400 based ASUS A7N8X throw up some surprising results:

This is also interesting in the fact that it’s the first time we have seen anything based on the nForce2 400 chipset. Since we never received a reference board from anyone, we are taking the Soltek board as the defacto performance we can and should look for on future nF2 400 motherboards. Which raises the question: why is the nF2 400 performing better than the nF2 Ultra 400 board? To be completely honest, I am not sure and any answers I have gotten from NVIDIA seem stretched at best.

If the performance of the Soltek board is the norm for this chipset, why won’t any manufacturers offer full-featured motherboards based on this less expensive chipset for the enthusiast market? I can only imagine the acceptance a board with SATA, RAID, good 6-channel audio, Firewire, USB 2.0 and more would get if it were $30-50 less than current offerings.

Soltek NV400-64: Single Channel nForce2 400 Review @ AMDMB