whats the general consensus on an nforce2 chipset motherboard? what advantages does it have over the via chipset ones? are there any infact?

hes a link to start you off.

link 1 (http://www17.tomshardware.com/mainboard/20021111/index.html)

The NForce2 chipset is NVidia's second chipset for the Athlon family of processors. They finally got it right this time! ;) It's a dual-DDR chipset, just like the first NForce, but is much improved. The performance is better than VIA's KT400 chipset, but only if you use at least 2 sticks of RAM. Makes sense that a dual-DDR board needs 2 sticks of RAM, huh? :p I haven't seen the numbers, but I would guess that the NForce2's performance with only one stick of RAM isn't that great. Also, NForce2 motherboards are more expensive right now because the NForce2 chipset itself was just recently released.

The problem with needing 2 sticks of RAM is upgrading. If you can only afford 512MB of RAM, you'll have to buy two 256MB sticks instead of one 512MB stick. And since just about every Athlon board has 3 DIMM slots max, you've only got one DIMM slot left for a future RAM upgrade.

Those issues aside, you must also realize that the NForce2 chipset was designed in two ways: one for built-in GF4 MX graphics, and one without the onboard graphics (for those of us who use something better :D ). It should be easy to tell the difference by the mobo's description and price, but it's also another thing to keep track of.

In terms of features, VIA's KT400 and NVidia's NForce2 chipsets are very similar. Both support the new 333MHz fsb, max 3GB of DDR333 or DDR400 RAM, AGP 8x, etc. The NForce2 chipset has superior performance with 2 sticks of RAM, but is also more expensive right now. VIA also has a KT400A chipset in the works, to be released in the next few months, that is also a dual-DDR chipset.

We'll see how well dual-DDR stands up to DDR-II technology...

Another strong point of the NForce chipset is the integrated Dolby Digital sound, This really has to be considered if you are wanting to build a home entertainment center PC.

Via has the advantage of being cheaper while being competive speed and stability wise. I have a Nforce 1 board which is doing very well and Via 400kt boards, so far it looks like the Nforce is the more stable. Though the problem may lay in have cases not designed for optimal cooling and air flow. So my xp2000+ (.18u) is not getting the cooling it needs.

Following URLs may give you the comparison from different angles:

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.php?ArticleID=211
http://www.xbitlabs.com/mainboards/nforce2-kt400/
http://gamer-insight.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=99