Conclusion
When you consider what KT880 consists of - the DualStream64 memory controller that debuted in PT880, grafted to the 32-bit Athlon interface - and you consider why the extra memory controller is a bit useless in most cases, you begin to wonder what the point of it is. Sure, it's dual-channel and VIA get marketing parity with what NVIDIA are knocking out, and VT8227 and the other VIA ASICs are largely excellent, but it's a bit late getting here.nForce2 Ultra 400 has been around since July 2003, some seven months. Plain nForce2 has been around for over a year. While KT880 may boast better base features than nForce2 in some respects (SATA), it's still deficient and reliant on other chips for others (FireWire).
With NVIDIA ruling the 32-bit AMD enthusiast market with iron fists, VIA are going to find it hard to break into the market with KT880, given that performance is barely more than KT600, if at all, and it still lags behind NVIDIA's effort in that respect.
Hmm. It's a decent chipset, don't get me wrong, and low cost and features should see it sell decently. But it's not going to get the enthusiast's juices flowing. The reference board had no voltage options, no multiplier adjust and limited front side bus adjust. Nowhere near the tools required for some overclocking testing.
I hear ASUS have a board ready, so it'll be interesting to see what they can do with it, given that their boards are generally feature rich and pretty cheap these days, for Socket A at least.
But until retail boards appear, it remains a low-cost curiosity. Performance is decent, the VT8237 bridge is worthy of any motherboard being sold today and pairing it with things like VT6307 and Envy24PT make a lot of sense, giving lots of value for not much money, but it's nothing special in reference board form.
Given that VIA reference boards often perform higher than retail examples, it's nothing to shout about. Just a nice healthy update to the budget 32-bit AMD choice.
Underwhelming. Wake me up when ASUS, DFI or ABIT make one with good voltage range, Envy24PT and a decent feature bundle.
Pros
Decent performanceVT8237 is excellent
Will be cheap
Cons
Not as fast as nForce2 Ultra 400Unproven overclocking
