Soltek SL-K8AN-RL nForce3 150 Motherboard Review
Despite
the lack of 64bit software, we're glad to see that consumers
are adopting the Athlon64 early on. As I'm sure you're all aware, the 32
bit performance of the Athlon64 is outstanding, rivaled only by Intel's
extremely rare Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
processor.
Soltek
have arguably produced the least expensive Athlon64 motherboard on the
market with their SL-K8AN-RL. The remarkable thing is, a low bottom dollar
doesn't mean all the extras have been left by the way side, as the
SL-K8AN-RL is very well equipped.
The Soltek
SL-K8AN-RL is compatible with Socket 754
Athlon64 processors. It has two DIMM slots which can support up to 2GB
of PC3200 DDR RAM speeds.
The board also features
integrated 10/100 LAN, 5.1 channel audio, Serial ATA/Serial ATA RAID and an
additional Ultra/133 IDE slot! Upgrading is easy with five PCI slots to choose
from, and 8x AGP port.
If you have a case window you're going to love the
Soltek SL-K8AN-RL.... the jet-black PCB and purple slots look pretty cool. The
general layout of the board might throw you for a curve, but works really
well. We're not use to seeing the DIMM slots on top of the CPU socket, but
in this way they are easy to access, and it saves space so that the
SL-K8AN-RL can easily fit in those mid tower ATX cases.
The main IDE/power connectors are in a great location to
the right of the CPU socket, this way they're not going to interfere with the
other system devices.
Did we mention that the SL-K8AN-RL retails for as little
as $130 CDN ($100 US)?
That's pretty amazing considering the SL-K8AN-RL
has a fair number of goodies included on board.
It's also really handy to have that third Ultra/133
IDE channel available; there are still a lot more parallel IDE devices on the market
than Serial ATA. Soltek also threw in a third Serial ATA port for good measure
as they know it's the way of the future.
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