Introduction

NVIDIA's nForce4 family has been so pervasive that it has more or less eclipsed its competitors over the past year in the retail scene. NVIDIA has been enjoying the headlines in this area with the various nForce4 launches, from its initial release to the Intel Edition and lately their GeForce 6100 family that put them back on the integrated graphics roadmap as well. We've taken a look at a few alternative solutions in the past from ATI to ULi and have found that the performance of some of these chipsets can be quite competitive against NVIDIA's nForce4 MCPs and now we look askew again at another competing chipset, this time from VIA.

After a very successful run with their past K8T800 series, VIA paper-launched its successor, the K8T890 almost a year ago. Updated with PCI Express support, the K8T890 has been their flagship Athlon 64 chipset ever since. However, unlike the widely available K8T800 in its days, one can hardly find wide range support for the K8T890 and some high-profile manufacturers don't even seem to carry any boards in their lineup. So how did the successor of a popular chipset become so obscure? Earlier this year, VIA has announced that they've past their mark for shipping their billionth Athlon chipset and going strong, so they must be doing relatively well, perhaps in the OEM markets where solutions are chosen with a different criteria from the retail channel.

Gigabyte was one of the earlier adopters of the chipset, though like many others, they only carry selective models entrenched in the value segment. We decided to take a look at one of the few available K8T890 retail motherboards available and the GA-K8VT890-9 seemed like a good candidate. For an entry-level budget motherboard, you will find out that the GA-K8VT890-9 and the VIA K8T890 chipset are actually worth looking into.

The Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 motherboard.

The following are the contents of the Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 motherboard package and they are as follows:-

1 x SATA data cable

1 x SATA power converter cable

1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable

1 x floppy drive data cable

I/O shield

Driver and application CD (Norton Internet Security)

Hardware installation guide

Gigabyte GA-K8VT890-9 Technical Specifications

CPU Support	Supports AMD socket 939 Athlon 64 CPU Supports AMD socket 939 Athlon 64 FX CPU Supports AMD Cool 'n' Quiet Technology
Chipset	Northbridge: VIA K8T890 Bi-directional 1GHz (2000MT/s) HyperTransport interface to processor PCI Express x16 graphics Supports up to four PCI Express x1 lanes Ultra V-Link 1066 MB/sec interconnect to Southbridge Southbridge: VIA VT8237R Supports up to six PCI slots Supports up to eight USB 2.0 ports 10/100Mbps Fast Ethernet MAC Supports two SATA ports (with RAID 0, 1 and 0+1 capabilities) Ultra V-Link 1066 MB/sec interconnect to Northbridge
Memory	Dual channel memory architecture integrated into processor Four 184-pin DDR DIMM sockets Supports 2.5v DDR SDRAM DIMM modules Supports up to 4GB using PC1600 (DDR200), PC2100 (DDR266), PC2700 (DDR333) and PC3200 (DDR400) unbuffered DDR SDRAM DIMM
Storage	VIA VT8237R Southbridge 4 x Ultra ATA 33/66/100/133 (data transfer rate up to 133MB/sec.) 2 x SATA (Serial ATA 1.5Gbps interface) Supports SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1
Audio	Realtek ALC850 8-channel audio CODEC
Networking	Marvell Yukon 88E8053 PCI Express Gigabit LAN
I/O Interface	1 x Floppy connector 2 x Ultra ATA IDE connectors 2 x SATA connectors 8 x USB 2.0 ports (4 x rear, 4 x header) 1 x RJ45 LAN port 2-Channel Audio I/O ports with MIC and Line-IN (Jack-sensing) Audio Combo Kit header (optional 8-channel and S/PDIF bracket) 1 x CD-IN 2 x 9-pin serial port 1 x parallel port (header) 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port 1 x mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe x16 slots, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 2 x PCIe x1 slots, PCI Express Bus specification v1.0a compliant 3 x 32-bit PCI slots
PCB	ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6"(30.5cm x 24.4cm)

Classic rear I/O panel with two COM ports and basic audio jacks. Standard issue USB 2.0 ports and RJ45 is available too.