Socket 754 Roundup: Comparing Generation 2
by Wesley Fink on May 28, 2004 5:57 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Chaintech VNF3-250: Features and Layout
| Motherboard Specifications | |
| CPU Interface | Socket 754 Athlon 64 |
| Chipset | nVidia nForce3-250 |
| CPU Ratios | 6 to 22 in 1X increments |
| Bus Speeds | 200MHz to 400MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| PCI/AGP Speeds | Auto, 66MHz to 85MHz (in 1MHz increments) |
| HyperTransport | 1x-5x (200MHz to 1GHz) |
| Core Voltage | 1.45V-1.70V in .025V increments to 1.55V and .05V increments 1.6V to 1.7V |
| DRAM Voltage | 2.5V to 2.9V in 0.1V increments |
| AGP Voltage | 1.5V to 2.2V in 0.1V increments |
| Chipset Voltage | 1.6V to 1.9V in 0.1V increments |
| Memory Slots | Three 184-pin DDR DIMM Slots Unbuffered Memory to 2GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 AGP 8X Slot 5 PCI Slots 1 CMR (Chaintech Multimedia Riser) Slot |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | nVidia 2-Drive SATA by nF3-250 SATA can be combined in RAID 0, 1, JBOD |
| Onboard IDE | Two Standard nVidia ATA133/100/66 (4 drives) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250 No FireWire ports |
| Onboard LAN | 10/100 Ethernet Realtek RTO8100C PCI |
| Onboard Audio | CMedia CM19761A 6-Channel with SPDIF |
Chaintech motherboards are best known for their top-of-the-line Zenith series, which include coordinated cables, front break-out boxes, and every motherboard accessory that you could imagine. The other top Chaintech feature is a very complete selection of overclocking and control options for the Enthusiast. With that in mind, you may not be surprised to see the complete selection of Voltage and Frequency adjustments. However, you may be shocked when you realize that this kind of control is available on a motherboard designed to sell for less than $100.
The VNF3-250 is the first Zenith Value Edition motherboard. We are told that the Zenith Value Edition boards are designed to provide top-notch features for the Enthusiast and Overclocker, but without all the add-ons and frills that drive up the price. Based on that philosophy, Chaintech has certainly succeeded in reaching their target with the VNF3-250.
There are some compromises in order to reach the "under $100" price goal. Chaintech uses the nF3-250 chipset rather than the more expensive nF3-250Gb, and therefore has eliminated the on-chip Gigabit LAN and nVidia on-chip Firewall. Instead, 10/100 LAN is provided with a Realtek PCI chip. RAID is of the 2-drive SATA variety and is not the 8-drive "any-drive" IDE/RAID solution found on top-line nForce3-250Gb boards. Also, you will not find any Firewire ports on the VNF3-250, but these can be added with a PCI card if you need them. Everything else, however, is here on the Chaintech and the performance that we found with this board in our review of OCZ3700 was simply outstanding.
The VNF3-250 is a little smaller than full ATX, but nothing is cramped at all on the board. It is also worth pointing out that Chaintech, unlike most others building to a price point, still delivers a 3-phase power design. This attention to detail pays off in the great performance that we found with the Chaintech.
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karlreading - Monday, August 30, 2004 - link
i braught the chaintech vnf3-250 based on the review it recieved at AT and TBPH its a cracking motherboard, plus it easily gets my 2ghz a64-3200+ to 2.4 ghz and lets you run 1ghz HT if u running the cpu stock, something whic supposidly only the nf3 ultra let u do.all in all a very fast, very reliable, very overclockerbul motherboard which i have NMO regrets about buying :)lem79 - Friday, August 6, 2004 - link
I have the Epox 8KDA3+ here with an Athlon64 2800+, runs nice, except for one quirk, which Anandtech failed to mention here (they probably didn't even know)..Cool'n'Quiet only works on this board when _one_ DIMM slot is in use (that is, DIMM1). If there's RAM in DIMM2 and DIMM3 slots, Cool'n'Quiet gets disabled by the BIOS (July revision, earlier BIOS images leave it enabled, but Cool'n'Quiet activation causes system instability and lockups). Epox themselves told me that this was the case.
I think the review needs updating..
operator - Sunday, June 6, 2004 - link
I have the same question as #25. with a small addition.when will the msi k8n or the epox board be available in Canada?
Zebo - Wednesday, June 2, 2004 - link
This is a very good review Wesley, thanks. I really like how you went into detail with memory and boards FSB capabilites for the clockers out here.:) Looks like the Chaintech is the board for me. Cheap and a real performer. It's really to bad nVidia failed to have a decent sound solution though.Sk0t - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Nice review.... BUT Im unable to understand why the Epox 8KDA3+ was awarded gold, and MSI K8n Neo Platinum only awarded silver ?Epox pros over MSI:
6th pci-slot
Slightly better overclocking
MSI pros over Epox:
Firewire
3 working dimm sockets (at 400mhz)
Slightly better layout (dimm-sockets)
Supports Cool&Quiet*
*Since the review seems to completly ignore cool&quiet (unless i missed it?) I will stick to my current rule of thumb, that only Asus & MSI fully supports this feature
Did I miss some wonderfull feature on the Epox ? or was slightly better overclocking considered more important than features & layout ?
gmenfan - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Does anyone know when the MSI K8N Neo will be available? Thanks.mbf - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
Nice review! I just have one question; how can there be boards *without* ECC support, when the A64 has the memory controller on-die and it *inherently* supports unbuffered ECC memory? I'm especially thinking of the Epox and MSI boards, since they interest me the most (hardware firewall et al).Actually, I wrote to MSI (US) about this and was told that indeed ECC is supported and the "non-ECC" statement on the product spec page was erroneous. The page was immediately updated (http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?mode... However, only the US site has been updated, and neither the manual (PDF) nor the BIOS available from the MSI Taiwan site state ECC support. Neither do the manual or BIOS for the Epox board.
As ECC support is pretty important to me having had some bitter experiences with regular memory, I was wondering if some kind person at Anandtech might be persuaded to throw in a stick of unbuffered ECC memory into either the K8N Neo or the Epox 8KDA3 and let me know if the memory is detected as such? I'd really appreciate the effort!
I know the ASUS K8N-E Deluxe (http://www.asus.com.tw/products/mb/socket754/k8n-e... states ECC support, but it's anyone's guess when that board will be out, since they cannot even make their mind up if the board is to be shown on their home page or not (right now it is, tomorrow it may not).
l3ored - Tuesday, June 1, 2004 - link
price is mentioned as a component in electing the epox as the gold winner, so whats the current street price?SilverRyu - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Do you think shuttle will make a 250Gb or K8T800Pro XPC?cnq - Monday, May 31, 2004 - link
Wesley,Nice writeup...
A question about overclocking: you tested at 1:1 ratios, meaning you didn't really find the bounds of the FSB/HTT so much as you found the bounds of the PC4400 RAM that you used. If you had dropped the RAM ratio, do you have any indication which boards could have topped 300 MHz? I am of course thinking of your great AK89 Max review from a few weeks back, where you made waves by showing FSB/HTT speeds of 347 MHz. Will you have time to do similar tests on these new boards? (Or, for that matter, can I ask why you didn't do similar tests on these new boards? Is it merely because ClockGen hasn't yet been ported to NF250?)
I'd also like to second the suggestion made by posting #1 (he mentions aceshardware.com. techreport.com has also chimed in with recent articles on the subject. Not surprisingly, their conclusion is to just avoid cheap Realtek products if you want good CPU utilization. And sudhian.com found great ethernet performance with low CPU overhead from the NF250-GB chip's embedded controller.)