X-bit labs

First Mass Mainboard on NVIDIA nForce3 250: Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-250 Review (page 4)

Category: Chipsets

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 04/07/2004 | 03:15 PM ]

The new nForce3 250 chipset can control the FSB and AGP/PCI frequencies independently by itself. Moreover, manufacturers of mainboards who now have got some experience in building nForce3-based mainboards will probably implement the option of locking the AGP/PCI frequencies at their nominal values (66/33MHz). Overall, it’s highly probable that nForce3 250-based mainboards will be quite suitable for overclocking. For example, the Chaintech Zenith ZNF3-250 mainboard we tested had no problems with fixing the AGP/PCI clock rates. This allowed us to overclock the processor by increasing the FSB frequency, without worrying about any peripheral devices.

Of course, the option of overclocking the AGP bus, independently of the FSB, remained here, too. The BIOS Setup of the future mainboards will have such an option. Though earlier many mainboards on the NVIDIA nForce3 150 had the PCI frequency set synchronously with the FSB (it equaled FSB/6), while today the nForce3 250 has the PCI clock rate set synchronously with the AGP (it equals AGP/2).

Overall, NVIDIA nForce3 250 chipset, especially in its “advanced” nForce3 250Gb version, seems to be a chipset, generously endowed with various functions. You can see it from the following table, which compares the characteristics of the new chipsets from NVIDIA with specifications of other Socket 754/Socket 940 chipsets:

You see that the NVIDIA nForce3 150 was obviously an obsolete product with poor characteristics, while the nForce3 250 looks winning: all deficiencies of the previous product have been amended and the characteristics have been adjusted to comply with today’s conventional standards. They also enriched the product with a couple of exclusive, distinguishing things that make the nForce3 250 into the most tempting product.

This is theory, though. We’ll see what we have in practice shortly, examining the first off-the-shelf mainboard on the nForce3 250. It is the Zenith ZNF3-250 from Chaintech.