One has to wonder if VIA is hoping for some sort of redemption of their chipsets with the Athlon64... After all, the companies' core logic took quite a beating when we think back to the AthlonXP, falling far from grace against nVIDIA's almighty nForce2 chipset.

Subsequent VIA/K7 chipsets were unable to really match the nForce2 in terms performance or features, but opposite to what you might expect, we are approaching the VIA K8T800 with a great deal of excitement. The reason is simple enough, while VIA may have faltered late in life with the K7, the K8T800 is currently the fastest performing Athlon64 chipset, bar none. Rumour has it that nvidia are planning a new nForce3 250 chipset, but that isn't exactly out now is it?

With the fresh taste of enthusiast friendly motherboards in our minds, you can imagine that expectations are quite high for the brand new Epox 8HDA3+, a VIA K8T800 and VT8237 based motherboard. The AMD Athlon64 processor was released in two pin configurations, the first socket 754 and second socket 940.

While there are an abundance of socket 754 motherboards making their way to the retail channels ever so slowly, the handful of socket 940 motherboards seem to be taking an even slower route. The Athlon64 FX-51 may be available if you look very closely, but its lifespan is short, and I don't expect there to be much of a rally behind motherboards which support it in the face of an upcoming socket 939 version.

Epox 8HDA3+ Motherboard Includes: Motherboard Manual, 2x Serial ATA Cables, 2x Serial ATA Power Cables. 2x Ultra133 IDE Cables. Floppy Drive Cable, Driver CD, 2x Serial ATA Driver Disks, I/O Backplate, Game Port/Serial ATA Bracket