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VIA's New PT Chipsets

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the delicious-new-chips dept.

TheTechLounge writes "Today VIA is announcing their new PT series of chipsets to the masses. The chipsets that make up the PT series represent the first real alternatives to Intel's chipsets for the Pentium 4 platform and aim to ease the transition to PCI-Express and DDR-II. All of VIA's PT products are covered under a ten-year cross license agreement between VIA and Intel. As expected, the majority of motherboard manufacturers will be using the PT chipsets in upcoming boards. Some of these companies include Abit, Asus, Chaintech, Biostar, DFI, EPoX, Gigabyte, MSI and Soltek. The PT chipsets cover a wide range of PCI-Express, AGP and IGP solutions for the Intel platform. VIA's new PT chipsets include the PT880 Pro, the PT894 and the PT894 Pro."

5 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, but... by Goronmon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As for pricing, the PT880 Pro will be priced competitively with the current Intel 865 solutions on the market while the PT894 will be priced to compete with the current Intel 915 boards and the PT894 Pro competing with 915/925 boards.

    The fact that they don't mention price until the end and in such a lackluster way it makes it tough for me to get excited about this. I really would like to see a less expensive alternative to Intel, not just "priced competitively".

    Plus, the fact that the benchmarks don't show anything too exciting doesn't help either.

    But competition is always a good thing, I just wish the only selling point didn't seem like "We aren't Intel".

    1. Re:Yeah, but... by Grand · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yea the benchmarks are about the same as Intels. But the thing that makes this special is that you can use 2 different types of ram (not at the same time of course) and two different types of video cards (same time im assuming, I just looked at the pretty pictures in the article). That makes this board much more appealing to people in the MB/upgrading market. Buy this and buy the DDR and AGP video card relatively cheaply. In most cases, people already have these items in their current computer and they only need to upgrade the CPU and MB. Then later when DDR2, and PCIE hardware comes down in price, upgrading is an option without having to upgrade your MB (~150-200 bucks) to support your shiny new DDR2, and PCIE cards.

  2. Where not Intel is not a selling point. by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least now that Intel has gotten over that whole RAMBUS stupidity.
    Intel chip sets tend to be very stable. I have to admit that for a server I was thinking of building I am thinking very hard about an Intel motherboard with an Intel CPU. Unless the VIA is faster or cheaper what is the benefit?

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    1. Re:Where not Intel is not a selling point. by LWATCDR · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Intel does not have a stigma because for years and years their was little choice but Intel. Even AMD where just faster or cheaper versions of Intel chips until the Athlon64. I think AMD is missing the boat by not making Athlon/Opteron motherboards. It would help eliminate finger pointing. It is the CPU, not it is the chip set, no it is the mother board. If you buy a motherboard from Asus for the Opteron using a Via chip set you now have no less than three companies involved in one major part of your system. You can get an Intel motherboard that uses an Intel chip set with an Intel CPU then you only have one place to look for answers. Of course they will probably blame the ram. All in all Intel has the reputation for very stable motherboards.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  3. Re:Linux-friendly? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is the reason I am on intel at the moment, because the VIAs were still getting support on A64 and the A32 weren't competitive with the intel p4s of the time. Nforce being locked up, I chose intel.

    I am kinda glad I did, because motherboard and chip EVERYTHING just works (tm). If only there were an open source graphics card of worth it would be apple-like in it's hardware compatibility, no driver downloads, any distro, just works. Very pleased after the tributlations of a cheapo AMD board before with bad sound support.

    And as it stands the 2.8 p4 I bought and overclocked to 3.2 (soon to go higher) is better value for money (for my applications) than the A64 3000+ that was the not very overclockable contenter for the price point of the time.

    Intel also moving very quickly on linux support for their new stuff.

    I say punish whoever doesn't provide all drivers in the motherboard market. Binaries are not acceptable for ethernet chips.