Readers' Award 2003 Results (2)
Grumpy/Bluetooth 5 Jan 2004

AMD Mainboards/Chipsets for 2003 is dominated by Nvidia NF2 for the most part, it really was a great year for a company noted for its' video cards. Towards the end of the year we saw the arrival of the AMD64 Family of CPUs, Opterons, FX51, and the Athlon64 XP with Socket 754. SIS was the dark horse though, producing a Chipset that achieved performance close to NF2 in many areas, but allowed Mainboards to be produced at a budget price point. As you will see, SIS based products did very well in categories where price was a factor. On the downside, SIS had a hard time getting their Chipsets to release stage, and getting Manufacturers to build Mainboards using their Chipsets for AMD was even tougher.

Best Socket A chipset

First off the rank is Best Socket A Chipset 2003, and as foretold, Nvidia dominated with 59.3 %. SIS faired quite well though, grabbing 31.2 %. Via, which has not done too badly sales wise now that the KT600 is here, was a shameful 9.6 %. This low figure is a legacy of previous chipsets being prone to bugs, leaving users very disgruntled.

Best Overclocking Board 2003 showed the fortunes of Manufacturers of AMD Mainboards this year. Asus started well, but suffered as overclocking results showed only average ability, relying on their reputation as a stable platform to garner support with 15% of Members votes. Epox also had a strong start, showing great results from day one of the release of their NF2 Mainboard, the 8RDA3+. Gaining 20.2% of the votes, it started to slip late in 2003 as newer products provided better features for equal overclocking merit. Second spot, with 25.9% of the votes, was DFI and their Lan Party NFII Ultra. An amazing feat considering the Mainboards' late entry into the race, if left any longer it would have grabbed first due to its' growing reputation as the champion of Socket A overclocking.

Just hanging on with 31.2 % of the vote, a large and decisive figure, was the Abit NF7-S v2.0. This has been the Socket A Mainboard of 2003, and deservedly so. Though the early revisions had issue, they were quickly rectified to form a standout product. Allowing a full range of Multipliers, great Vcore and Vdimm settings, solid FSB manipulation and the all important 12v 4 pin power input, the NF7-S v2.0 reigned supreme until DFI appeared late last year. Note all the top four are NF2 Chipsets.

Best Socket A Overclocking Board

When moving onto the Best Socket A Board Cost/Performance Ratio 2003, ASrock  with 30.5% of votes, snuck past Abit on 30.3%. Abit looked to have this Award with the little brother of the NF7-2, the non Sata NF7. At the last hurdle, the ASrock K7S8X-E bounded ahead, relying on the SIS 748 Chipset and its' budget price to stick a nose in front at the camera. Reliable, speedy, and a reasonable overclocker, this Mainboard has been a solid release for ASrock, one of the best overall Mainboard companies of 2003 in my opinion. The ECS L7S7A2, an SIS 746 Chipset product , snared third place way down the scales on 9.9% of Members Votes.

Best A Socket Board in Cost/Performance Ratio

Now, if you have the Mainboard, you need to keep it cool. This brings us to a very important Award, Best Socket A Heatsink 2003. Surprisingly, the Cooler Master Aero 7+ grabbed 1st spot on.

29.1 %, an achievement that still amazes me. Not the best performing, this HSF achieved notoriety for being very different in style and height. Not since the Thermaltake Orbs has there  been anything this bizzare looking sit atop an AMD Cpu. Speaking of Thermaltake, their Volcano 11+ scored 2nd place with 25.8% of votes. Thermalright, the company I feel makes the best performing HSF for AMD Socket A CPUs, came 3rd and 4th with 13.6% and 9.3% respectively, with a Heatsink with two slightly different models: The SLK 900-A and SLK 900u. Combined, this gave the Thermalright 900 a vote of 22.9 %, well, I feel it is justified to show the combined figure. Thermaltake scored 5th place with the trusty Volcano 7+ netting 8.2%.

Best Socket A Heatsink

At the end of 2003, Socket 754 arrived for the Athlon 64, and while Chipset choices were scarce at the shop, several are now nearing release. With the category of Best Socket 754 Chipset 2003, Nvidia and Via have dominated, as the only two real entrants. SIS have the 755 and 760 Chipset on there way to retailers as I type, and ALi has only just seen a Mainboard manufacturer release a product using their Chipset. Nvidia had the early publicity, but lower than expected performance soon had them struggling to stay in touch with the Via solution. But it is ALi and SIS which take the gongs for first ( Yes a tie ), with virtually no product yet available, relying solely on the benchmark results from their Reference Boards.  The ALi M1687/M1563 and SIS 755/964 stole first with both achieving 26.9% of the votes from Members. Performing above the levels of Via and Nvidia, many Members are waiting anxiously to purchase a Mainboard with these Chipsets inside, though Manufacturers are still reluctant to release ALi or SIS products.

Best Socket 754 Chipset

Finally, we have the overall Award for Best Socket A/754 Mainboard Package 2003. Not just the Motherboard, but includes any goodies manufacturers deems to shove inside the Box for users to find. Here we see this years Dark Horse emerge from the mob and take out first with 34.3%, DFI and their Lan Party NFII Ultra. Considering what is in the Box, I would think this late comer winning was a foregone conclusion. Sata Cables, Breakout Box for the front of the case, UV reacting Cables, a Carry Bag for tranporting to Lan Parties, the list goes on. And then it overclocks like a mad man. What more could you want.

Second place went to Asus and the K8V Deluxe, netting a respectable 30.8% of the votes. Based on the Via K8T800 Chipset for Socket 754, it gains attention for including a special slot for a wireless lan card base on the 802.11b Standard. This is a quality product with excellent features. Third belonged to the Gigabyte 7NNXP on 10.2%, an NF2 based mainboard, giving Gigabyte a much needed mention in these Awards.

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