READ: Athlon 64 chipset comparison
With at least four platforms to choose from, the Athlon 64's PCI Express chipset lineup finally has some depth. But between the latest core logic options from ATI and ULi, NVIDIA, SiS, and VIA, which chipset has the most desirable blend of features and best performance? Check out the benchmark results in this TechReport comparison: (excerpt)So which Athlon 64 chipset reigns supreme? That's a tough question. The K8T890 does not; that much is certain. With the exception of USB, its performance is nothing special, and you'd need something special to get over the VT8237's relatively weak feature set.
SiS's entry looks very promising, but the IOMeter performance wall is worrying. Also, given recent history, it seems doubtful motherboard manufacturers will use the SiS756 for anything but low-end products that generally don't offer the extra goodies that enthusiasts have come to expect on a motherboard. It's hard to get too excited about a chipset that may only be found on boards from ASRock, ECS, and Foxconn. Those boards may well be solid budget choices given the SiS756's performance in our tests. Still, I wish DFI, Abit, or one of the big three would take a stab at building an enthusiast-oriented motherboard based on this chipset.
So we're left with the Radeon Xpress 200/M1573, which is a clear winner for integrated graphics platforms, and the nForce4 Ultra, which has the benefit of widespread availability at a range of price points. Both platforms have their problems, but at least for now, I'm inclined to favor narrowly the nForce4 Ultra. The Radeon Xpress 200/M1573 combo is still rare in the wild, and its poor USB and command queuing performance can't be as easily sidestepped as the nForce4 Ultra's high ActiveArmor CPU utilization. In the Athlon 64 world, we don't have a juggernaut like Intel who generally gets chipsets 100% right. Here, we have to settle for who gets the most things right. Right now, that's the nForce4 Ultra.
