While nVidia is making a lot of noise with their nForce chipsets for the Athlon64 platform, we still have VIA with their K8T800 PRO as a very respectable competitor. Today, we take a look at the Soltek K8TPro-939 which we feel is one of the best boards based on this chipset and find out how it stacks against nVidia’s nForce3 chipset. The K8TPro-939 is a  Socket 939 boards supporting the latest generation of Athlon64 processors and dual channel memory. Full specifications can be read here.

Packaging

We like the packaging on the K8TPro-939. It comes in a nice big box with almost everything to get you up and running. To match the looks of the motherboard Soltek provides purple-colored floppy and IDE cables.

Our biggest complain is the lack of a back plate for the parallel port which we’ve already mentioned earlier. On the good side, you get a nice software bundle with three applications- PC Cillin 2004, Virtual Drive 7 and RestoreIT 3 Lite.

Layout

Sotlek uses a black PCB with mostly purple connectors and a bit of yellow to differentiate between the dual channel memory configuration and RAID connectors. While we would’ve preferred everything in one color, this combination still looks pretty good and would certainly allow you to show it off in a clear casing. The main power connector is placed nicely along the top-right edge of the board although the 4-pin connector is a bit lower than we would’ve liked.

We love the way Soltek has placed MOSFETS on the board- they’re in line but far apart and on both sides of the board. Since MOSFETS can get quite hot, its good that Soltek places them apart and being in-line allows you to very easily slap a heatsink on them. The IDE connectors are placed below the PCI slots which is not an ideal position for them, but shouldn’t cause too many problems. The floppy connector is placed all the way at the bottom edge of the board. We think a better place would’ve been along with the IDE connectors.

The jumper for clearing CMOS is very awkwardly placed between the floppy connector and USB headers making it a bit hard to get to. Soltek should’ve placed this jumper in a more accessible position. Also, the IEEE1394 header is placed closed to the back panel which makes your AGP card come between itself and a free PCI slot- again, not the smartest move.