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@ 2005/07/11Socket 939 is no longer a rare commodity in mainboards like it was six months ago. We've batched together a group of nine of these AMD Athlon 64–ready mobos, ranging from the bargain basement to the ultimate gamer models for overclockers and tweakers.
It's clear that, in many ways, Nvidia's nForce 4 Ultra chipset offers a more-complete package than VIA's K8T890 and VT8237 combo. Soltek has to rely on a Promise controller for two of its SATA ports, which limits your RAID options a bit. You do have four SATA ports total, but you have to think of them as separate pairs, and can therefore only hook up RAID arrays of no more than two drives. Beyond that, the feature set is pretty competitive. You've got a x16 PCIe graphics slot, three x1 PCIe slots, and two PCI slots. Gigabit Ethernet and FireWire are in there, too.
It's clear that, in many ways, Nvidia's nForce 4 Ultra chipset offers a more-complete package than VIA's K8T890 and VT8237 combo. Soltek has to rely on a Promise controller for two of its SATA ports, which limits your RAID options a bit. You do have four SATA ports total, but you have to think of them as separate pairs, and can therefore only hook up RAID arrays of no more than two drives. Beyond that, the feature set is pretty competitive. You've got a x16 PCIe graphics slot, three x1 PCIe slots, and two PCI slots. Gigabit Ethernet and FireWire are in there, too.
