ALTHOUGH NVIDIA'S nForce2 chipset was a darling of the enthusiast and gaming community, the company's nForce3 150 didn't fare so well. The nForce3 150 was available as early as the Opteron launch, but the chipset's comparably weak feature set and initially uninspired performance drove many to VIA's faster and more feature-rich K8T800 chipset.

The K8T800 has enjoyed the lead in both features and performance since its introduction, but the tables may turn with the release of NVIDIA's nForce3 250Gb chipset. The 250Gb beefs up the nForce3's HyperTransport link and adds Gigabit Ethernet, Serial ATA and IDE RAID, a working AGP/PCI lock, and a hardware-accelerated firewall to the chipset's arsenal of integrated features.

Can the nForce3 250Gb's updated feature set and performance help NVIDIA capture the Athlon 64 chipset crown? Read on to find out.