Soltek NV400-L64: Purple, Practical, AND Performance!

Final Words

The Soltek NV400-L64 is a bargain-priced, single-channel nForce2 400 board whose primary reason for being is to compete with the VIA KT600 with a lower-cost NVIDIA chipset, and to provide compelling value for mainstream users. It meets both of these goals very well, and has to be considered a roaring success.

The surprising performance of the single-channel nForce2 400, however, also makes the NV400-L64 the ideal board in situations that you might not have considered. Its top-notch gaming performance makes it an ideal choice for a top-performing gaming rig, and its low price will save the gamer some money, to be spent on a better video card, for example. While the gaming performance of the Soltek is excellent, it is not a knock-out punch, as its performance is very close to the gaming performance of top Ultra 400 boards.

For mainstream use in multimedia creation and general office work, the NV400-L64 is also a competent performer. If you are working on a limited budget and/or desire an excellent price point, you won’t be making any performance sacrifices with this Soltek. In fact, you may also save money buying memory. Top performance can be achieved on the NV400-L64 with just one stick of memory, compared to nForce2 Ultra 400 boards that need a matched pair of DIMMs for best performance.

Despite these positive remarks, there are some weaknesses in the nForce2 400 chipset. Applications like SpecViewperf 7.0 show that there are trade-offs with the single-channel solution. In truly demanding workstation applications, the Soltek NV400-L64 is no substitute for a top nForce2 Ultra 400 dual-channel solution.

It’s hard not to get excited about a board that sells for about $70 and outperforms the majority of Athlon boards in gaming. It’s easy to recommend the Soltek for a top-notch gaming rig, as well as a mainstream system that provides top-performance with few frills at a value price. It is not, however, the board that beats the nForce2 Ultra 400 in demanding applications.