Concluding thoughts
It's always fascinating to see how an established manufacturer begins the task of taking on a rival that has stepped onto its patch, beat it up, and assumed control. Whilst that's a little harsh on VIA, many onlookers would argue that is exactly what's happened in the Socket A world. There was a time that VIA could do no wrong, then along came NVIDIA with a chipset rammed with features and, more importantly, lots of speed.
The KT600 is beginning to feel like a worthy contender to the nForce2 Ultra 400. Sure, it's not as fast, as our benchmarks clearly show, but it's not all that far behind. Now with 200FSB CPU ratification and a South Bridge that, amongst other things, supports native SATA, it's fair to say that VIA is quickly catching up NVIDIA on all fronts. That's why we were eager to put a full retail KT600-based motherboard through its paces. MSI obliged.
The MSI KT6 Delta-FIS2R proved itself to be a solid and sure-footed board during a week's testing. More features than you can shake the proverbial stick at, stability to rival the very best, performance that was more than adequate, and a BIOS that's generally good (bar the non-unlocking of CPUs) all culminate into a motherboard that's strong in most respects. The KT600 is just a natural progression of the KT400A and one that specifies a feature-rich South Bridge.
If MSI can market this board at, say, £20 lower than a similarly specified nForce2 Ultra 400, we can see a number of OEM system integrators opting for it. The SATA revolution is well underway. The MSI KT6 Delta obliges via an on-chip controller. Bottom line is that this board isn't outstanding in any one area, it's just pretty good at most things. Much like snooker's Ken Doherty.
Highs
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Excellent specification
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Robust and stable - that goes for the BIOS too
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Performance was more than adequate for a single-channel chipset
Lows
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Not as quick as NVIDIA's finest
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Didn't unlock CPUs automatically
