Introduction

You're only as good as your last product in this business, and VIA must be stinging about the fact that they almost single handedly kept the Socket-A platform on life support only to have NVIDIA come along with their better performing nForce2 platform and snatch the performance crown and the sales from under their noses.

VIA's KT400A chipset was too little too late to fend off NVIDIA's dual channel memory based onslaught which was setting new standards for Athlon memory performance and even the obvious problems with their IDE drivers and other minor driver related glitches weren't enough to kill off the nForce fever that was expected to follow the launch of the original, rather disappointing nForce chipset but which certainly picked up pace with nForce2.

Despite the imminent release of AMD64, I don't imagine anyone expected VIA to sit back and watch NVIDIA mop up the enthusiast dollars, pride as well as finances were at stake. Their answer....the KT600 chipset! Genuine contender or just a substandard decoy? Let's have a look.

KT600 Chipset

Announced on the 18th of August, the KT600 primarily adds native support for 400MHz Front Side Bus and memory thanks to what they grandly call their "FastStream64™ DDR400 Memory Controller technology". VIA claim that this "interweaves" FSB and memory clocks to provide a perfectly balanced memory subsytem and decreased latencies. We'll see!

Key Features
· Supports full range of AMD Athlon™ XP processors
· 266/333/400MHz FSB settings
· Supports up to 4.0GB DDR266/333/400 SDRAM
· Support for AGP 4X/8X
· 8X V-Link 533MB/s high bandwidth North/South Bridge interconnect
· Integrated VIA Vinyl™ Six-TRAC six-channel AC'97 audio
· Serial ATA support for up to 4 devices
· RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 0+1 support, including Disk Striping and Disk Mirroring
· VIA RAID Software Configuration Program (supports Windows® & Linux)
· Parallel ATA 33/66/100/133 support for up to 4 devices
· Support for up to 8 USB 2.0/USB 1.1 ports, UHCI compliant
· Integrated MC'97 Modem
· Integrated 10/100 Fast Ethernet MAC
· Advanced power management capabilities including ACPI/OnNow
· 664-pin BGA North Bridge
· 539-pin BGA VT8237 South Bridge

A quick look at the comparison between the new KT600 and earlier KT400 chipsets shows there's not a vast difference between the two. Support for two additional USB ports has been added bringing the total to eight, though anyone with eight devices to plug in would almost certainly be better advised to do so by means of a powered hub sat on their desk.

VIA have also decided to add on-chip support for two Serial-ATA devices.

The Motherboard

So now we know what the KT600 is all about, all that remains is to look at the motherboard that will exploit these features, and in today's case this is MSI's KT6 Delta-FIS2R, a motherboard that says all the right things on the spec sheet and looks like it should be a welcome addition to the KT600 board lineup. Here's the tale of the tape.

KT6 Delta-SR [Standard Version (SATA RAID 0, 1)] (Not Reviewed Here) KT6 Delta-LSR [SATA RAID 0, 1 , 10/100 LAN] (Not Reviewed Here) KT6 Delta-FISR [SATA RAID 0, 1(SB), Gigabit LAN, IEEE1394] (Not Reviewed Here) KT6 Delta-FIS2R [SATA RAID 0, 1(SB), SATA RAID 0, 1, 0+1 (Promise), Gigabit LAN, IEEE1394] CPU   • Supports Socket A (Socket 462) for AMD® Athlon™ XP/    Athlon™/Duron™ processor • Supports to Athlon™ XP 3200+ processor or higher speed • Supports 200/266/333/400MHz FSB Chipset   • VIA® KT600 Chipset  - FSB @200/266/333/400MHz  - Supports DDR200/266/333/400 memory  - AGP 8X and PCI advanced high performance memory     controller. • VIA® VT8237 Chipset  - Ultra DMA 66/100/133 master mode EIDE controller.  - Intergrated dual channel native Serial ATA/RAID controller     supplying 150MB/s supporting for RAID 0 and RAID 1  - ACPI & PC2001 compliant enhanced power management.  - Supports 8 USB 2.0 ports Main Memory   • Supports six memory banks using three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs. • Supports up to 3GB memory size. • Supports DDR400/DDR333/DDR266/DDR200 SDRAM Note: PC3200 (DDR400) maximum 4 banks only. Slots   • One AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) slot.   - Supports AGP 4x/8x.   - Supports AGP 3.0 • Five 32-bit PCI bus slots (support 3.3v/5v PCI bus interface). On-Board IDE     • An IDE controller on the VT8237 chipset provides IDE HDD/CD-ROM with PIO, Bus Master and Ultra DMA 133/100/66 operation modes. - Can connect up to four Ultra ATA drives. • Serial ATA/150 controller integrated in VT8237. - Up to 150MB/sec transfer speeds. - Can connect up to two Serial ATA drives. - Supports RAID 0 or RAID 1. Promise 20378 On-Board (Optional)   • Supports Ultra ATA, Serial ATA, Ultra ATA RAID 0 or 1 , Serial ATA RAID 0 or 1, Ultra/Serial ATA RAID 0+1 supported. • Connect up to 2 Serial ATA devices and 2 Ultra ATA 133 devices. Audio   • 6 channels software audio codec C-Media 9739A. - Compliance with AC97 v2.2 Spec. - Meet PC2001 audio performance requirement. - Can support SPDIF Out via optional S-Bracket only. LAN (Optional)   • Broadcom 4401/5788 - Integrated Gigabit Ethernet MAC and PHY transceiver, auto-negotiation operation. - Supports single-port 10MB/s, 100MB/s (for 4401) or 1000MB/s (for 5788) BAST-T application. - Compliance with PCI v2.2 and LAN on Motherboard (LOM) standard. On-Board Peripherals     On-Board Peripherals include:  - 1 floppy port supports 2 FDDs with 360K, 720K, 1.2M, 1.44M     and 2.88Mbytes  - 2 serial ports (COM A + COM B)  - 1 parallel port supports SPP/EPP/ECP mode  - 1 IrDA connector for SIR/ASKIR/HPSIR  - 1 audio port  - 8 USB 2.0 ports (Rear x4/ Front x2) BIOS   • The mainboard BIOS provides "Plug & Play" BIOS which    detects the peripheral devices and expansion cards of the    board automatically. • The mainboard provides a Desktop Management Interface    (DMI) function which records your mainboard specifications. Dimension   30.5 cm(L) x 23.5 cm(W) ATX Form Factor Mounting   6 mounting holes. Bundled MSI Super Pack Free Software/Utility (Optional-Not Supplied)    <Adobe Photoshop Album>  <Media Dialer>  <FarStone Virtual Drive>  <InterVideo WinDVD>  <InterVideoWinRip>  <FarStone RestoreIt !> Accessories (Optional- Not Supplied) MSI™ 1394 Cable (Optional) Serial ATA Cables MSI™ Round Cable (Optional) For KT6 Delta-FIS2R only MSI™ Bundled free Cable For KT6 Delta-SR, KT6 Delta-LSR

A Closer Look