Socket 939 Motherboards - MSI and nVidia vs. ABIT and VIA

Introduction

When it comes to advances in computer technologies, the Socket 939 is one of the newer ones to hit the marketplace. There aren't too many choices yet in this arena, but we have managed to gather up a couple of the top contenders to see what kind of performance you can expect to get from the two chipsets vying for supremacy in this new market.

Yes, two chipsets will be covered here as well as two motherboards. Fighting for your upgrade dollars are the nVidia nForce3 Ultra powered MSI K8N Neo 2 Platinum and the VIA K8T800 Pro propelled ABIT AV8 - 3rd Eye. We've seen the nForce being the choice in chipset for the Athlon 64 based on the Socket 754 packaging, so we'll run a series of tests to try to determine where your allegiance needs to lie for this new processor type.

So sit back and relax as we toss an Athlon 64 FX-53 into both boards and see where the power lies. We already know the processor is strong, so now we just need to figure out which board will best support its power!