* KOSPI rises, foreigners net buyers

* Korean won weakens against U.S. dollar

* South Korea benchmark bond yield rises

SEOUL, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Round-up of South Korean financial markets:

** South Korean shares were set to gain for a third straight session on Thursday, following Wall Street's overnight rally, boosted by Samsung Electronics after U.S. firm Nvidia said the company would manufacture a series of powerful gaming chips.

** Shares of the worlds top memory-chip and smartphone maker jumped as much as 5% after Nvidia Corp said Samsung would manufacture the new GeForce chips. SK Hynix also rose about 5%.

** By 0231 GMT, the benchmark KOSPI rose 35.68 points, or 1.51%, to 2,400.05.

** Also lifting sentiment, South Korea's finance ministry said on Thursday the government plans to create a 20 trillion won ($16.8 billion) fund over the next five years for President Moon Jae-in's "New Deal" program. ** Foreign investors are snapping up IT shares following report that Nvidia has tapped Samsung and many are once again seeing Samsung as a major beneficiary, said Seo Sang-young, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities. ** Foreigners were net buyers of 251.7 billion won worth of shares on the main board. ** The won was quoted at 1,186.4 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, 0.08% lower than its previous close at 1,185.4. ** In offshore trading, the won was quoted at 1,186.2 per dollar, up 0.2% from the previous day, while in non-deliverable forward trading its one-month contract was quoted at 1,186.2. ** MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.24%. ** The trading volume during the session in the KOSPI index was 545.97 million shares. Of the total traded issues of 899, the number of advancing shares was 499. ** The won has lost 2.5% against the dollar this year.

** The most liquid 3-year Korean treasury bond yield rose by 1.4 basis points to 0.939%, while the benchmark 10-year yield rose by 1.6 basis points to 1.555%.

(Reporting by Cynthia Kim, Jihoon Lee; Editing by Amy Caren Daniel)