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We've
recently looked at two Albatron motherboards and both proved to be great
motherboards, with their nF2 board nabbing the Editor's Choice Award.
The Intel board had some flaws with overclocking but was a stable and
feature rich board none the less. Today we'll be looking at the K8X800
Pro II which is Albatron's Athlon64 Socket 754 board. The board is based
on VIA's K8T800 chipset. VIA appears to have the upper edge in performance
against the NF3 150, which is the only challenger at the moment. However,
nVidia has announced a new version of the NF3, the nForce 3 250, is due
out next month,
Albatron came into the mobo market only a couple years ago and is already
breathing down the necks of the big guys in the market. The KX18D Pro
II is an awesome board, with little to be desired. A few small changes
with the bios layout and the actual board layout and it would have taken
King of the Hill. I hope to be as impressed while working with this chipset
as well. However, this board is based on VIA's KT800 chip which is well
known for the lack of a PCI/AGP lock and therefore will not give us the
overclocking potential we saw in the KX18D Pro II.
Currently, there is no word from Albatron if they plan to switch to the
new nF3 250. The new nForce3 250 is rumored to have the PCI/AGP locked
to appeal to the overclockers. I have no doubt that the mighty and inexpensive
Athlon64 paired with a board that allows overclocking will attract quite
a few of you, especially with the issues arising with overclocking the
Prescotts .
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