With the nForce3 250 Gb NVIDIA brings a lot to the table that hasn't been seen before in their motherboard chipsets and even new features that their competition doesn't offer. The new features are especially gratifying for those of us that were disappointed with the nForce3 150. The ability to use SATA and PATA together in a RAID array is very useful for those that want to make use of their old hard disk drives. The onboard Firewall is also extremely useful.
So what don't I like about the nForce3 250 Gb platform? First of all, many could say that this is what the first nForce3 150 platform should have been. It's April, a full 7 months after the release of the Athlon 64 3200+ last year. VIA is established as the leader currently of the generation of boards for the Athlon 64 and I'll have to wait and see how retail boards will perform versus the K8T800 before I declare a "winner".
With Socket 939 looming within the next couple of months, there are apparently plans for a Socket 939 version of this motherboard. Those looking for an AMD Athlon 64 system may want to wait for that platform to come out before jumping on the nForce3 250 Gb bandwagon. All AMD high-end CPUs will use the new interface and the upgradeability later for the Socket 754 will be limited to the mainstream Athlon XP and Duron CPUs.
For now, this is just the beginning. It's an exciting year for computers. Upcoming this year, AGP will be replaced by PCI-Express, the Socket 754 interface will be replaced by 939, Intel's Socket 478 interface will be replaced by LGA-775, and their 875P and 865 chipsets will be replaced by Grantsdale and Alderwood, a new form factor (BTX) will replace the venerable ATX standard, and that's just what's known today. If you're looking for a Socket 754 motherboard, the nForce3 250 Gb has all of the features of the competition with competitive performance.
