does anyone know if this motherboard has agp/pci lock in bios? im looking at upgrading 1 pc on my network and i like this board and if it has agp/pci lock that would be a big plus thanks

amazingly, it does not. PCI lock is a vital overclocking feature and the lack of it is the main reason via boards are far inferior to nforce2 boards for overclockers. If they had pci lock, they would still be inferior due to lower fsb ability but many would accept a 5% lower fsb if it saved them a few bucks. Having a pci clock that is independant of the fsb clock introduces timing challenges that via has yet to figure out. Maybe they should hire a headhunter to recruit one of the nvidia chipset engineers.

No PCI lock. But the KT600 chipset does have a 1/6 divisor, so all will be in spec at 200 MHz FSB. So busspeeds well over 200 MHz are possible.

but as soon as your pci goes over 33 (and your agp goes over 66 with it), something has the chance to have a timing error - the hard drive, the ide controller, a network card, a sound card, a video card, in fact, everything except the memory. A 1/6 divisor is better than nothing but its still not a pci lock.

The Nforce chipset is a better performer than the KT600, it has been proven by benchmarks. But the KT600 is still a good value, and is capable of meeting the performance needs of many users. There was life before PCI/AGP locks. FSB overclocking with divisors does have some risk, as does all overclocking. I'm still using an Epox 8K3A+, which has the KT333 chipset. It only has a 1/5 divisor, and it has been run at over 200 MHz FSB for over a year now. I've settled on 209, which gives me an 83 MHz AGP, and a 41 MHz PCI bus. I've had it up to 215, which gave me 89/43 respectively. Harddrive performance fell off sharply at 43 PCI. And I ran it for quite a while at 214, but I finally realized that my CDRW wasn't working correctly because of the 42 MHz PCI. But at 209, none of my components has ever given me a problem. I've overclocked at lot of different motherboards in the past few years, and I've never had a problem running any part up to at least 40 MHz PCI bus. You'd have to run a KT600 to 250 FSB to get your PCI bus as far out of spec as I have mine! The only problem I have with my present combo is that an ATI video card isn't an option. I'v eread reports from many users that they will not tolerate AGP bus speeds higher than the low 70's.