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AMD 3200+ / VIA KT600 / NV Ultra 400

The down and dirty on AMD's newest AthlonXP, VIA's newest chipset, and NVIDIA's newest chipset. Head to head to head.

Introduction

This will be one of the simplest reviews we have ever done. Oddly enough we are going to cover three totally new products. Wait, did I say "totally new"? That is not quite right. What we have here is three new product launches that are anything but new. I think a better way to say it is that we simply have three already released products that are simply faster.

AMD's 3200+

Today we cover AMD's new AthlonXP 3200+ processor. This CPU is based on AMD's Barton core technology that debuted not so many months ago. The big announcement that AMD has with the 3200+ is the fact that it now supports a 200MHz Front Side Bus (effectively 400MHz).

Above we see our 3200+ next to the 3000+. Last is a close up of the codes on our CPU.

This is actually a very significant move for AMD as the FSB of the AthlonXP has been one of the crucial bottlenecks holding the CPU back from utilizing the true power of DDR memory. Our AMD CPU moves from having a theoretical bandwidth of 2.7GB/s to 3.2GB/s that it can now consume with the proper memory bus. Of course as most of you recall from past experiments, the AthlonXP family has shown to be most powerful when met with a synchronous memory bus. This means that now the CPU and DDR memory can both share an official 400MHz bus, which has shown to lend a performance improvement if they scale upward together.

Interestingly enough, this 400MHz FSB CPU does not reflect a new stepping from the previous 333MHz bus Barton core CPUs. Essentially, it is the same CPU with a faster bus as well as a faster clock. Our 3200+ weighs in today touting a 2.2GHz clock (11*200MHz). For comparison, the 3000+ AthlonXP was clocked at 2.167GHz (13*166).

This CPU is already available in online channels but will require a healthy payment in the US$480 range.

VIA's KT600 Chipset

From the products looked at here today, VIA's KT600 probably is the "newest" of them all as we know for a fact that VIA has done extensive optimizations on their memory controller. Although you may have heard rumors of dual channel DDR for VIA on the Socket A platform, that is not true. The VIA KT600 is still a SCDDR part.

Of course the chipset does now officially support the AthlonXP's 400MHz FSB as well at DDR400MHz memory bus. Being a single channel part of course allows you to use a single DIMM in the system should you wish to.

Instead of being redundant, we would like to refer you back to our KT400A chipset article. It will show you specifics surrounding our current KT600 chipset including all supported devices of the VT8237 southbridge.

Above you see the KT600 chipset as well as the reference board we tested on.

NVIDIA's Ultra 400

The more things change, the more they stay the same correct? NVIDIA's nForce2 is a perfect example of this. Here is our original tech article on the NF2 chipset from July of 2002. While this chipset does enjoy a current new revision with optimizations, anyone that knows will tell you that the nForce2 was designed for the 400MHz AMD system bus that is now a realization.

The nForce2 has been our de facto AMD testing platform as it has been the fastest system you could buy since the very end of last year. Where it greatly differs from the KT600 is the fact that the NF2 utilizes a dual channel 128-bit memory configuration, theoretically allowing for double the bandwidth that the KT600 does. The truth that negates the theory in the real world is of course the limiting nature of the AMD AthlonXP CPU's FSB.

Above is a shot of a v2 nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset on a reference board. The board we used for actual testing is the Asus. It is essentially the same Asus A7N8X that has been with us since last year. This one does have the version 2 chipset and an offical 400MHz BIOS (1006).

With all that said, you know as well as I do that the most of you simply want to see the benchmarks of these two chipsets head to head, so let's continue with exactly that.