VIA KT400A. *3-31-03 UPDATE*

[Soulkeeper]

yeah it's the whole lead or follow philosophy
they've lost the highend
guess via is gonna hafta start following in nvidia's footsteps
their designs are gonna start being more and more like nvidia's nforce dual channel and integrated audio to start with

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

There is an article about the KT400A at xbit... looks pretty promising. I'll see if I can find the link.

 

[chizow]

These boards are taking FOREVER!!! Supposed to be out in January, if the first boardmaker is sending out next week, there probably won't be volume shipments until April!!!

My nForce2 has been great and has offered more features than any board I've owned to date, but I'm still not completely satisfied. I still think there's a few things that are lacking or are being held back in the form of a BIOS revision.

Chiz

 

[Mem]

Gigabyte announces their new 7VAXP-A Ultra KT400A motherboard.

Info here .

 

[Wag]

I was waiting for the KT400a but gave up. Too little too late. I jumped on the FIC AU11 today.

No mention in that Gigabyte PR about dual-channel memory support- If they had it you'ld think they'ld be hyping it up the wazoo.

 

[StayPuff]

Originally posted by: DevilsAdvocate
There is an article about the KT400A at xbit... looks pretty promising. I'll see if I can find the link.

* * * XBit article here * * *

 

[StayPuff]

This is interesting....

Click HERE and you will see:

We published KT400A preview by mistake and we apologize
to our readers, to our hardware site friends and to Via
for the trouble...

Thank you for bearing with us...

AMDboard editorial team

 

[sequoia464]

WAG...I was doing the same, had an Epox 8KTA3pro- (KT133A) that was getting tired, the KT400A was rumored to be coming out as early as last November so I waited, but no KT400A ; December ; I waited ; January ; I waited ; February ; I waited ; March ; I didn't wait, I now have an ABIT NF7-S revision1.2

...I know that nForce2 also had it's share of delays but I think VIA's delaying KT400A was probably an issue of selling off all the KT400 chipsets and boards before releasing the KT400A, not any tech. or manufacturing issues. Unless the KT400A absolutely SMOKES (doubtful) nForce2 and can mow the lawn and wash the dishes, I'm staying with NVIDIA.

 

[RideFree]

Yea! 400A too little, too late.

When it does come down the pike and start to chisel into the nForce2 cash cow, I'll bet that nVidia tunes up the drivers real quick.
Until then, they have nothing to lose. I mean, if you are thinking of, or committed to an AMD today, what do you get?
Answer: nForce2!

 

[pillage2001]

VIA KT400A is fantastically 0.65% faster than single-channel NVIDIA nForce2 and amazingly 0.43% quicker than dual-channel nForce2 in Winstone Content Creation test.

lol.

 

[First]

Originally posted by: pillage2001
VIA KT400A is fantastically 0.65% faster than single-channel NVIDIA nForce2 and amazingly 0.43% quicker than dual-channel nForce2 in Winstone Content Creation test.

lol.

Hehe, I thought that was funny also.

Btw, I just updated my first post a few seconds ago...

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb

Originally posted by: pillage2001
VIA KT400A is fantastically 0.65% faster than single-channel NVIDIA nForce2 and amazingly 0.43% quicker than dual-channel nForce2 in Winstone Content Creation test.

lol.

Hehe, I thought that was funny also.

Btw, I just updated my first post a few seconds ago...

There are more, go to that site and get a good laugh.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: pillage2001

Originally posted by: Evan Lieb

Originally posted by: pillage2001
VIA KT400A is fantastically 0.65% faster than single-channel NVIDIA nForce2 and amazingly 0.43% quicker than dual-channel nForce2 in Winstone Content Creation test.

lol.

Hehe, I thought that was funny also.

Btw, I just updated my first post a few seconds ago...

There are more, go to that site and get a good laugh.

Bwahahah! Sounds like that article was published on Tom's. There's still time though!

Chiz

 

[BarryAZ]

Well the KT400a boards will need to be priced about $20 cheaper than the nforce boards -- then again, that is a possible price point for them anyway as the KT400 boards run $20 to $35 cheaper than the Nforce boards at the moment.

Then again, the argument for nforce boards includes absolute fastest performance, so saving a few bucks is not of interest I suppose.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BarryAZ
Well the KT400a boards will need to be priced about $20 cheaper than the nforce boards -- then again, that is a possible price point for them anyway as the KT400 boards run $20 to $35 cheaper than the Nforce boards at the moment.

Then again, the argument for nforce boards includes absolute fastest performance, so saving a few bucks is not of interest I suppose.

Plus KT400A's SB will be inferior until they release their revised SB (8237?) in a few months. There's also rumblings that a new revision of the the KT400A is already planned which will offer 400MHz FSB support. Very disappointing that VIA couldn't have implemented that given the 5 month timeframe they've had since nForce2.

Chiz

 

[BarryAZ]

I agree that where VIA has missed things is on a top end board ($100 +) -- there is a market there and Nvidea currently has it.

It just seems that the KT400 (or 400a) is not that bad at the discount that it is often sold.

I've been happy enough with the VIT BIOSTAR boards for my clients.

Now, one of these days I will get a top end board/CPU for my workstation stuff -- but frankly, I don't push it that much now.

 

[jade1313]

i work for a global/enterprise level company, and it is planning on giving amd a run for non-mission critical boxes... if things go well, minds seem to be open to maybe expanding amd in company servers/dev boxes/misc boxes over time, motivated by better price to performance ratios...

so far as i can wrangle, ppl want to see:

- gigabit ethernet onboard
- serial ata w/ raid

can we expect these features on a board from any major manufacturer?

tx!

 

[Soulkeeper]

yes but i don't think the southbridge with the sata and the new features will be ready for another month or so
nforce2 might still be a better choice for yur company since you can use the onboard graphics/nic/sound

 

[Soulkeeper]

the kn400 looks nice tho
if it has the same performance as the desktop variant it will bring long needed performance to the athlon mobile platform
it'll be the equivalent of going from the kt133 to the kt400 on the desktop
mmmm nice move
i wonder how the s3 graphics on it will do tho.....

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: jade1313
i work for a global/enterprise level company, and it is planning on giving amd a run for non-mission critical boxes... if things go well, minds seem to be open to maybe expanding amd in company servers/dev boxes/misc boxes over time, motivated by better price to performance ratios...

so far as i can wrangle, ppl want to see:

- gigabit ethernet onboard
- serial ata w/ raid

can we expect these features on a board from any major manufacturer?

tx!

The nForce2 comes close to filling the needs you addressed. It doesn't have a true gigabit ethernet adapter, but the nVidia onboard MAC performs very well as seen in AT's nForce2 preview. There are also a few boards with an onboard serial ata RAID controller. Both the Asus A7N8X Deluxe (~$140-$150) and Abit NF7-S (~$130) have onboard SATA RAID, there may be others but I'm not positive.

Chiz

 

[Soulkeeper]

hahaha Sis beat Via to 400mhz fsb support
haha ohh well
i wonder how well this thing benchmarks
this could be interesting

 

[thehandler]

I would not discount the 400A chipset just because it doesn't have dual DDR support. It has been clearly demonstrated that the updated memory controller in this chipset is vastly improved and runs right with the Dual DDR controller of the NF2.
Lets face it. If you use the integrated graphics faeture of the mobo, the dual DDR bandwidth is useful and makes a big difference in benchies. But how many of us do that? Using an add on board and comparing the NF2 chipset with dual DDR enabled, results are about the same as the KT-400A chipset with it's improved single channel mem.
Using one stick of ram is preferable to me.
To me the biggest question of all is, will the KT-400A boards have a fixed PCI/AGP bus?
It was mentioned by an earlier poster that the chipset would be outdated and useless until the new 8237 south bridge were paired up with it. That is true. That combo however will rock. And from what I Am told and what I read, the chipset will first be released with the 8235 for a matter of weeks just to get them out the door and then immediatly switched to the 8237 southbridge. So I don't think the wait will be that long.
This is a wonderful thread. If you wish to view another official thread please go here:
http://www.amdforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=205640&goto=newpost

 

[NicColt]

>To me the biggest question of all is, will the KT-400A boards have a fixed PCI/AGP bus?

according to the Asus A7V400 specs. "Adjustable FSB/DDR ratio, fixed AGP/PCI frequencies" so yes it has fixed AGP/PCI

>- gigabit ethernet onboard - serial ata w/ raid. can we expect these features on a board from any major manufacturer?

Yes, the A7V400 will have 2 x UltraDMA 133/100 and 2 x Serial ATA, RAID 0, RAID 1 or RAID 0+1 and Gigabit 3Com 3C940 1000 Mbps Ethernet controller.

"VIA claims boards using the VT1616 can produce higher quality audio than nForce2 boards"

"licensed from Sensaura. This licensing deal gets VIA access to the same suite of software audio technologies NVIDIA has licensed for the Xbox"

"The Sensaura drivers provide VT1616-based audio solutions a full range of positional audio features, including compatibility with all the major audio APIs: DirectSound3D, EAX 1.0/2.0, A3D 1.0, and I3DL2. Sensaura's software algorithms will, of course, require some CPU overhead, but VIA claims the impact on performance is fairly minimal."

The A7V400 will come with 1 x S/PDIF out connector

Don't forget that all kt400a benches were all made on early reference boards, all board manufacturers will get an updated final stepping before mass production.

 

[thehandler]

The only issue I see is the Asus board you reference uses the older 8235 Southbridge. The 8237 Southbridge would be a better choice and will be out any time now. I would wait for a chipset that included the 8237 if I were buying a VIA KT-400A mobo. Mike

 

[GetInMyFatBelly]

Agreed thehandler, but I read the the 8237 won't be out for a couple months (May).