nVidia nForce2 Ultra 400Gb: Fast LAN, Firewall, SATA, RAID for Athlon XP

Final Words

Socket A Athlon has not received the attention that the newer Athlon 64 chips have gotten in recent months, but the motherboards still sell in very large numbers for nVidia. That is undoubtedly the reason why nVidia decided to bring their leading-edge nForce3-250Gb chipset features to the nForce2 chipset. The nForce2 Ultra 400Gb uses the same proven nForce2 Ultra 400 SPP (or Northbridge), but is combined with a brand new nForce2 MCP-Gb to add on-chip Gigabit LAN, on-chip Firewall, nVidia SATA/IDE RAID, and 8 USB ports.

With this revised nForce2 Ultra 400Gb, shoppers for Socket A boards and Athlon XP processors have a choice of motherboard features that is just as up to date as the top Athlon 64 motherboards. This was also the message of the recently introduced VIA KT800 chipset.

No one would claim that Athlon XP performs as well as Athlon 64, but at a much cheaper price, you can normally reach 80% to 90% of the performance of an Athlon 64. For those on a tight budget or those who value "bang-for-the-buck" above all else, the Athlon XP is a great buy. Combined with the latest 400Gb, you can build a great system with top-of-the-line features with a Socket A CPU.

There is no doubt, in the long run, that Socket A will fade. AMD even plans to hasten this with the introduction of Socket 754 versions of Athlon XP. Socket 754 is slotted to fill the value segment for AMD down the road. However, nVidia has still shown their interest in Socket A with the new nF2 Ultra 400Gb, as has VIA with the KT880. The good news is that you can now get all the top features on a Socket A motherboard. The better news is that prices of these boards will likely be declining when Socket 939 is launched and Socket 754 is moved to value.

For a value shopper, Athlon XP is still a good choice, and nForce2 Ultra 400Gb provides a full feature list for the Socket A shopper. Socket A buyers will love this chipset unless they are looking for Sound Storm audio. Sound Storm remains in MCP-T, but it has been removed from both 400Gb and 400R MCP chips. The replacement audio supports Realtek 5.1 and 7.1 audio codecs with a new NVMixer for enhanced audio performance. We like NVMixer with Realtek as a reasonable on-board audio solution, but we are certain that there are some who will complain loudly that Sound Storm is headed for the exit.