VIA PT Series: VIA PCI Express for Intel
by Wesley Fink on January 31, 2005 12:01 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
The New VIA Chipsets
Today's introduction consists of three new VIA chipsets, targeted at different market segments.
The PT880 PRO is aimed at current Intel 865/875 users looking for a processor upgrade to Socket 775. However, the new Socket 775 is the only new purchase that you have to make with the board. Users can bring their existing AGP graphics card and memory with them - and still have an upgrade path to PCI Express graphics and DDR2 memory. The PT894 and PT894 PRO are aimed at the Enthusiast market and support only PCI Express graphics. The PT894 additionally supports dual PCIe graphics in an x16/x4 configuration.
| Platform Summary - Discrete P4 Chipsets | |||||
| PT880 Pro | PT894 | PT894 Pro | |||
| Processor Bus | 533/800/1066MHz | 533/800/1066MHz | 533/800/1066MHz | ||
| Memory Support | Dual Channel DDR-1 400/333/266 &/OR DDR-2 400/533/667 | Dual Channel DDR-1 400/333/266 &/OR DDR-2 400/533/667 | Dual Channel DDR-1 400/333/266 &/OR DDR-2 400/533/667 | ||
| Graphics Support | Universal Graphics Interface: PCI Express or AGP 8X OR PCIe + AGP 8X | PCI Express | VIA DualGFX Express (Dual PCI Express) | ||
| Chip Interconnect | Ultra V-Link | Ultra V-Link | Ultra V-Link | ||
| South Bridge | VT8237 | VT8237/VT8251 | VT8251 | ||
| Sampling | Early February 2005 | Now (January 2005) | Late February 2005 | ||
| Retail Market | Late Feb/Early March 2005 | Late February 2005 | Late March/Early April '05 | ||
All three chipsets support either DDR1 or DDR2 or both memory types on the same board (depending on what the manufacturer chooses to implement. The three new VIA chipsets are the first on the market to officially support DDR2-667 memory. FSB speeds to 1066 are also supported on all 3 chipsets.
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indianguy - Wednesday, February 2, 2005 - link
I may be wrong about hard disk bottleneck but these north bridges wont make it big anyway . Nforce 5 for intel pentium 4 for is about to be released soon and it wont be a paper launch like this one. It will kick ass of all other pentium chipsets. See the case of KT890 and nforce 4. Via made so much noise about being first for AMD cpu , but never made it while nforce 4 is everywhere.At the same time , i should also say that these north bridges made great choice for people upgrading old computers like socket 478 , williamette and northwood . I still have one old pentium 3 with via cle 266 chipset in biostar motherboard, where Via gave a new lease of life to my old pentium 3. But apart from that i wont use or reccomend anyone buying Via.
Cygni - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
little to now = little to noCygni - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
I dont agree at all that hard disc performance is whats holding back PC performance. Maybe for read/write heavy apps... but for gaming and general use, HD is hardly the problem, imho. Users these days have gobs of RAM which keeps frequent disc access way down.And theres lots of evidence that HD's arent the bottleneck in gaming. Moving from an ATA 133 drive to a SATA 150 drive barely gives any boost at all. Even moving from ATA 100 to SATA 150 shows little boost at all. Same with using Raptors, little to now increase in FPS. Loading times? Yup. Install times? Deffinitly... but overall performance? I just cant agree.
indianguy - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
This is just a paper launch. Hard disc performance is the main bottleneck nowadays in PC performance. Anyone buying motherboard today without NCQ and sata 2 will be very foolish. Until the 8251 (or 8239) southbridge from via comes , these northbridges wont do any good. Better buy a nforce 4 with sata 2 and sata 2 capable drive from hitachi rather than waste money in these obsolete south bridges and ultra v interconnects from via. By the time 8251 south bridge is actually released by via , next gen of 945/955 chipsets with sata 2/ncq will actually be released by intel making these chipsets only sold by no name mothorboard makers who sell only on price not features . Via makes big noise with no actual performace or product availability . No wonder its running knee deep in losses all these years .Wesley Fink - Tuesday, February 1, 2005 - link
#19 - We carried the overclocking as far as we could with the somewhat limited options available on the Reference board. The overclocking results are at the bottom of page 6.Googer - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
#18 we all know the odd are in favor of AMD winning that battle. 10-1.Azsen - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Have you tried to overclock these boards, see what they are capable of?Dualboy24 - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Well I hope this will help push the 775 boards into a reasonable price range with the support for AGP and PCI-E. This may increase the number of buyers for this platform... but right now I assume most enthusiasts are goinng AMD for the performance and the charts on the review do show why.Looking forward to the next big clash of the titans.... Dual Cores anyone?
Regs - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Wow would I love to see this for the AMD CPU's as well. It will dramatically help PCI-Express melt in to the market.Cygni - Monday, January 31, 2005 - link
Impressive stuff from VIA. Should do wonders for their marketshare in the P4 market, im thinking. VIA is already doing quite well in S939 with the K8T800Pro, but its going to lose some when NF4 hits in force.