VIA'S ATHLON 64 CHIPSET, the K8T800, has dominated the Athlon 64 scene since the processor's launch last fall. Right from the beginning, we found the K8T800 to be a fast, stable solution that outperformed its only real competition, the NVIDIA nForce3 150. Not only that, but the K8T800-based MSI K8T Master2 put in a stellar showing in our dual Opteron workstation motherboard round up not long ago.

Mated with VIA's VT8237 south bridge chip, the K8T800 offers support for AGP 8X, Serial ATA RAID, USB 2.0, six-channel audio, and the usual litany of checklist features common to today's core-logic chipsets. Short of an all out conversion to PCI Express, what more could anyone want out of an Athlon 64 chipset?

Two things, apparently. Keep reading to find out what they are.