Abit KN9
Abit KN9
Discovered an item priced at $3—could it be valuable? Seems to be a premium am2 board.
It's a NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP based AM2 board. For those seeking an AM2 setup, simply grab one and see if it meets your needs. It doesn't offer much in terms of special worth (monetary value) at all... In fact, I'm not familiar with any AM2 boards that provide this kind of performance.
During that period nvidia chipsets kept failing everywhere... they faced issues with poor solder in the substrate, causing cracks and breaks. Replacing would only fix it temporarily for days or weeks before it failed again. As fractures form, resistance spikes and the chipset gets even hotter, potentially leading to self-destruction. I wouldn't invest in a nvidia chipset motherboard, even at $3—there are too many capacitors that need replacement (in the VRM and near RAM slots). And the fourth board in the picture... what a weak VRM design, maybe 2+1 configuration with no heatsinks?
For AM2 I fully support it, though it varies across models. I own several DFI NF4 boards (Socket 939 Ultra-D, SLI-DR, Expert) that perform exceptionally well, including a few NF2 chipped units that also excel, such as an NFII Ultra B for Socket A. The performance really hinges on the socket type—any board with Nvidia chips after Socket 939 isn't consistently top-notch, and results depend heavily on the specific socket.
I was extremely pleased with my NF4 board running Linux at that time, since the Nvidia drivers for Linux were quite poor back then. Everything functioned perfectly.