Reply 20 of 26, by nd22
For socket 462 motherboards with VIA chipsets are cheaper and quite easy to find however they generally lag around 5-10% in performance behind nforce2 boards. First generation nforce boards are to be avoided as they have poor compatibility and stability. For a high end socket 462 - I see that you already chose the second best CPU for the socket - the board to have is Abit NF7-S 2.0 very difficult to find and commanding a huge premium. My all time favorite is Abit AN7 with the same nforce2 ultra 400 chipset that is the pinnacle of socket 462 boards IMHO. Be warned though nforce boards are picky with the memory. If you go the VIA route than Abit KW7 is the ultimate VIA board for socket 462 with KT880 chipset - fully Windows 98 compatible, takes every module of RAM you might have and has no problem with Creative live sound cards. Performance is extremely close to AN7 - within the margin of error. If I were you I would go with something that has a 4 pin power connector and provides the best balance between performance/stability/price.