SUMMARY: When the original nForce based motherboards were in production, they were supposed to be the greatest thing since bread and butter. Unfortunately, their performance was nothing to be proud of. But nVidia hasn't given up on the idea of a chipset for AMD processors with decent built-in graphics. Come join Cameron "Sov" Johnson as he takes a look at the Leadtek K7N420-DA Motherboard. It is based on the newest 420D nForce chipset and again has onboard graphics. But can they pull themselves out of the hole that they dug last time around? Let's find out!
Leadtek is more well known for their Video card line than motherboards. In fact, I doubt that I have really ever seen one out there. Though I haven’t looked hard, something like this would stand out. Leadtek has recently entered the motherboard domain with a select few products.
Leadtek have only made three boards of late for the AMD Athlon products. First made was the Winfast 7350KDA that was based on the SiS 735 chipset, a very impressive chipset I must say and a wise choice on their part. The other two Athlon motherboards are the K7N415DA and the K7N420DA, the latter, which we are reviewing today. The K7N415DA is based on nVidia’s nForce 415 chipset and the K7N420DA is based on the original nForce 420D chipset. In my personal opinion, I believe the use of nForce chipsets by motherboard manufacturers is more of a relations issue than a better product issue. With test results coming out showing that the nForce is rather under-powered, especially when compared to KT333 and even KT266A, why would anyone choose to use nForce?
This is most likely because Leadtek are prime buyers of nVidia’s video chipsets, and trying to push the nForce might curry some favors from nVidia. After all, look at Gigabyte, DFI and Biostar. They aren’t doing any video cards and they have no nForce boards because of its slack performance. We have seen in the past that boards based on the nForce chipsets display somewhat less than stellar performance. Will this be the case here? Let's find out.
