MSI KT6 Delta-FIS2R (KT600): Feature Packed Fun

Unlike their KT400A motherboard, MSI will be spending much more time and marketing money on their KT600-based KT6 Delta-FIS2R. This is true mostly because MSI knew that the KT400A would be a short-lived chipset, and they didn't feel that it would be worth their engineering resources because of KT400A's lack of official 400MHz FSB support, in combination with the KT400A's poor overclocking performance. Looking at our results from previous KT600 reviews (Epox 8KRA2+ and Gigabyte 7VT600 1394), it seems as if KT600 motherboards are only overclocking and performing marginally better than KT400A motherboards. The biggest advantage that KT600 motherboards have over KT400A motherboards is the official 400MHz FSB support, a big selling point for Socket A motherboards.

MSI expects that their KT6 Delta-FIS2R will be able to do better than their equivalently-positioned nForce2 Ultra 400 motherboards, based on the nForce2 SPP and IGP chipsets. Despite MSI's hopes for their new KT600-based motherboard, they are still more bullish about their NVIDIA-based motherboards. In fact, MSI is currently debating how to market NVIDIA and VIA's Athlon 64 chipsets against each other, given the relatively similar chipset features, save NVIDIA's superior DSP. One interesting tidbit we stumbled upon recently was how NVIDIA and VIA's Athlon 64 chipsets were performing. Unfortunately, we cannot reveal those exact performance differences at this time, but we can tell you that it won't be all that different than today's current Socket A market.

Read on to learn more about MSI's latest Athlon XP motherboard.