Motherboards in 2000 Preview - Part 1: Chipsets

Intel's 810E

The i810E will take the place of the old i810 as we make the transition into 2000. The i810E offers very few improvements over the old i810. It adds support for the 133MHz FSB and a 133MHz Display Cache, but other than that it is the same old i810 we were used to.

It would make a lot of sense for a motherboard manufacturer to release an i810 based integrated solution at a lower cost than an i810E based integrated motherboard solution simply because the 133MHz FSB + DC will most likely not be features that potential buyers are looking for in a low-cost chipset solution. Unfortunately, after talking to a number of motherboard manufacturers, it seems like the wave of i810 parts is coming to a halt and, instead, it's easier to pick up i810E parts.

The 4 month lifetime of the i810 chipset is definitely disappointing; hopefully the i810E will stick around for a little while longer.

ALi's calming down

Around this time last year, ALi was the talk of the town because they were to be the first company to produce a Super7 chipset. After being shown up by VIA in the Super7 arena (especially in compatibility issues) and after quietly disappearing when their Slot-1 product was left unexposed, ALi has assumed a much quieter role this year and into the year 2000.

We saw no huge mention of support for the Athlon platform with ALi chipsets (although they did have a mockup of an Athlon board) and, other than the Aladdin TNT2 (Slot-1/Socket-370 chipset with integrated TNT2 core), there was only one new desktop chipset solution that ALi had in the works for a 2000 release, the Aladdin 7. The Aladdin 7 resembles an Aladdin TNT2 with a toned down GeForce for its integrated video as it does feature on-board hardware T&L. While we have yet to see any motherboards based on the Aladdin 7, the solution should provide an interesting low-cost, high-performance path into the gaming market. The combination of hardware T&L support and slower CPUs should make an Aladdin 7 based system an easy to afford entry level gaming machine.

ALi's Athlon Chipset?