Soltek SL-K8AN-RL 'Black Thunder' Motherboard Review

Some people say that the move to the Athlon64 is too expensive and unnecessary for the average user and bring up things like the lack of performance gains over the AthlonXP, Absence of a 64-bit operating system, and increased cost of materials. I can agree with two of the previous examples though cost of materials, like a processor and motherboard, are no longer very prohibitive. There have been recent price cuts in Athlon64 processors and with the pending release of the "Newcastle" core the price point will drop even further.

With processor prices dropping into the range of the Pentium 4 that leaves us with the question of what motherboard to get. We are all familiar with Chaintech and many of the other vendors out there but when it comes to an inexpensive and high quality motherboard you can't beat either of the Soltek K8 solutions.

The board under review is another member of the "Black Thunder" series from Soltek, the SL-K8AN-RL. This board comes equipped with the nVidia nForce3-150 chipset and support for 754pin Athlon64 processors. As with all Black Thunder boards the PCB is a glossy jet black with purple expansion slots.

For a complete list of specs please visit the SL-K8AN-RL spec page at the Soltek website