We are looking at individuals scores again:
CPU shows KT600 in the lead but the difference is very small:
nforce2: 3341 - 100%
KT880: 3335 - 99.82%
KT600: 3433 - 102.75
RAM shows nforce2 and KT880 close but the single channel KT600 is left far behind!
nforce2: 2523 - 100%
KT880: 2465 - 97.70%
KT600: 2239 - 88.74%
GPU again KT600 is left behind, it seems KT880 improves upon his little brother with more than dual channel memory!
nforce2: 7178 - 100%
KT880: 6915 - 96.33%
KT600: 6343 - 88.36%

The final version of PC mark tested is 2005:

Individuals scores look as follows:
CPU are so close we can not declare a winner!
nforce2: 2921 - 100%
KT880: 2844 - 97.36%
KT600: 2883 - 98.69%
RAM - KT600 is again in last place!
nforce2: 2354 - 100%
KT880: 2267 - 96.30%
KT600: 2216 - 94.13%
GPU - this time there is no more doubt about the winner, nforce2 scores a clear victory; what is worse is the score of KV7/KT600 which is over 10% behind its bigger brother!
nforce2: 4180 - 100%
KT880: 3799 - 90.88%
KT600: 3333 - 79.73%

PC mark shows us that nforce2 keeps the lead; however an even bigger problem are the disastrous memory and graphics scores for the KT600 platform!

We are now going to test Super pi 1m, to see if CPU performance differs when using the KT600 chipset:

A lower score is better so let's compare:
nforce2: 49 sec - 100%
KT880: 52 sec - 93.88%
KT600: 53 sec - 91.84%
nforce2 is the quickest and secures another victory!

Cine bench 2003 is next:

KT600 has the highest score out of the 3 platforms but below the 5 % limit of error so still no clear victory for Abit KV7!
nforce2: 254 - 100%
KT880: 249 - 98.03%
KT600: 266 - 104.75%

We have now arrived at the final synthetic benchmark: Tom 2d!

This is not a mistake! There where no other programs running during this test! I repeated it many times; in fact I did not put the results on Sunday because that evening I took the spare KV7 out of storage, assembled everything using the second board, installed Windows XP and ran again Tom 2d several times!The result remain just as bad!
nforce2: 42613 - 100%
KT880: 31483 -73.88%
KT600: 1507 - 3.53%
KT600 is crushed and turned into fine dust! Abit KW7/KT880 score is bad but Abit KV7/KT600 score is abysmal, there is no other way to put it! GUI performance on KT600 chipset is horrible! KT880 improves enormously upon its predecessor but still is far behind nforce2! As for Abit KV7 this is the worst result in this comparative and the final score will be influenced a lot by it!
I must thank swaaye for suggesting this benchmark back in 2018 when I started this project!

After the humiliating defeat in Tom 2D we shall now see if Abit KV7 with VIA KT600 can redeem itself in games!
The first game is one of my favorites: Far cry 1 from 2004! All 3 resolutions are tested using max settings including AA because geforce 7800gs is more than capable of handling it. This is mostly a CPU bound game therefore this is a good test to see if the platform is limiting the CPU performance. I used HardwareOC bench tool to provide accurate and repeatable testing conditions. Because the results are in HTML format I do not have screen shots saved but I will put all of them in one archive for anyone interested.

The benchmark started at 04.07.2023 05:56:18

System Information
Operating system: Microsoft Windows XP
System memory: 2,0 GB
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3200+
CPU speed: 2233 MHz
Sound system: : Vinyl AC'97 Audio (WAVE)
VGA Information
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS
Memory: 256.0 MB
Current GPU speed: 375 MHz
Current memory speed: 1200 MHz
Driver version: 6.14.0010.9371 (English)

Resolution: 1024×768
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Volcano, demo: hocvolcano.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: 8×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 62,24 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 61,84 FPS (Run 2)
Score = 63,39 FPS (Run 3)
Average score = 62,49 FPS

Resolution: 1280×1024
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Volcano, demo: hocvolcano.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: 8×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 61,34 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 60,71 FPS (Run 2)
Score = 62,36 FPS (Run 3)
Average score = 61,47 FPS

Resolution: 1600×1200
Ultra quality option, Direct3D renderer
Level: Volcano, demo: hocvolcano.tmd
Pixel shader: default model
Antialising: 8×
Anisotropic filtering: 16×
HDR: disabled
Geometry Instancing: disabled
Normal-maps compression: disabled

Score = 56,10 FPS (Run 1)
Score = 53,57 FPS (Run 2)
Score = 56,60 FPS (Run 3)
Average score = 55,42 FPS

Let's compare the 3 platforms:

1024*768
nforce2: 67.35 fps - 100%
KT880: 58.22 fps - 86.44%
KT600: 62.49 fps - 92.78%
At this low resolution nforce2 wipes the floor with both VIA chipsets! Despite the fact that KT600 improves the score when compared against KT880 there is a big difference between it and nforce2 ultra!

1280*1024
nforce2: 66.86 - 100%
KT880: 58.64 fps - 87.70%
KT600: 61.47 fps - 91.93%
nforce2 is still in the lead by a large amount!

1600*1200
nforce2: 57.31 fps - 100%
KT880: 57.10 fps - 99.63%
KT600: 55.42 fps - 96.70%
Finally at this high resolution we are GPU limited so VIA escapes another humiliating defeat!

VIA VT1616 helps overcome some of difference but not enough!
In this games nforce2 has such an advantage than anyone using a board with a VIA chipset would gain a lot of performance by switching to a nforce2 ultra board!

The second game is Half life 2, a master piece that I still play today in my free time! This is the 2004 version and not the updated Steam version.
I used Fraps 3.4.7 because HardwareOC bench tool refused to work. I am sorry for the lack of screenshots - Fraps outputs the results in Excel.

1024*768:
Min: 45
Max: 72
Avg: 57.25

1280*1024
Min: 42
Max: 70
Avg: 55.733

1600*1200
Min: 42
Max: 74
Avg: 54.617

Finally we have a victory for KT600 platform! Already KW7 with KT880 was ahead of AN7 with nforce2 ultra by a small margin but the Realtek was holding back VIA. Now with the help of Vynil VT1616 codec VIA unleashes the full potential of KT600 and scores the first victory over nforce2!

1024*768
nforce2: 48.917 fps - 100%
KT880: 49.933 fps - 102.07%
KT600: 57.25 fps - 117.03%
Abit KV7 crushes both AN7 & KW7 at this low resolution!

1280*1024
nforce2: 47.750 fps - 100%
KT880: 48.717 fps - 102.02%
KT600: 55.733 fps - 116.71%
KT600 wins again by a large margin thanks to VT1616 audio codec!

1600*1200
nforce2: 47.550 fps - 100%
KT880: 45.700 fps - 96.10%
KT600: 54.617 fps - 114.86%
Even at this high resolution Abit KV7 wins which proves that VT1616 codec is a match to the much vaunted Sound storm!

For the final test only one game remains: Doom 3! Heavily GPU bound I disabled AA in order not to overwhelm geforce 7800gs which is too weak to play this game at max settings!
1024*768

VT1616 shows once again Sound storm is not something to be afraid of! KT880 lags behind because of ALC650 very high CPU utilization!
nforce2: 48.3 fps - 100%
KT880: 44.2 fps - 91.51%
KT600: 48.5 fps - 100.41%

We go up to 1280*1024:

One more time the audio codec used by Abit in KV7 makes up for the difference and KT600 is the equal of NFORCE2!
nforce2: 47.0 fps - 100%
KT880: 43.5 fps - 92.55%
KT600: 47.5 fps - 101.06%

And the final test at 1600*1200 resolution:

Doom 3 has no winner! Both KT600 and nforce2 ultra are too close to each other to claim victory! KT880 is let down by the Realtek codec. Does anybody know a motherboard with KT880 chipset using VIA VT1616 or similar audio codec? In my opinion such a board would outperform nforce2 ultra!
nforce2: 42.9 fps - 100%
KT880: 40.8 fps - 95.10%
KT600: 42.7 fps - 99.53%

The benchmarks are over! All 400 MHz chipsets for socket 462 have been tested!
Now for some things that can not be "seen"in the results about using the single channel Abit KV7/KT600 and the dual channel KW7/KT880 and AN7/nforce2 ultra:
1. none of the 3 systems feel sluggish in any way; performance in Windows is outstanding on all of them
2. does using a S/PDIF connection help nforce2 ultra to bypass the Realtek ALC658 that is used as a DAC? I do not know simply because I have never used one nor I do not know of anyone using one! Since the first PC I used only analog connections regardless of the type of system used: 2.0, 5.1, headphones, ; none of my friends have ever used such a connection, I have never seen a setup using an amplifier connected with the help of S/PDIF. Maybe if someone on this forum has such a system can share his opinion.
3. why does KT880 is slower than KT600 in many tests? Simply because it uses an inferior audio codec; the tests where KW7 looses by a large margin are always tests done using sound! In some tests such as PC mark KT880 is far ahead of KT600. In the rest of the tests the margin between KT600 and KT880 is 1-2%.