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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."

10 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Yay new chipsets! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Just what I always wanted, totally new chipsets with totally new incompatibilites, bugs, and other weirdnesses. What do you want to bet that it takes them one or two firmware revisions to make them work with some major video card vendor's product or another, or that they'll only boot with the pentium chips out now, and you'll have to somehow borrow a processor to flash an updated bios with any new processor IDs that come out say the week after you got the motherboard?

    1. Re:Yay new chipsets! by Jerf · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The infamous bug

      "The" infamous bug? Believe me, it takes more than one infamous bug to gain a well-deserved reputation as a purveyor of crap.

      I hit the one with the Soundblaster 128 + Via motherboard. Turns out Via's PCI was shit, and while the Soundblaster 128 did happen to really whale on the particular way in which it was shit, you could randomly lock the system up (completely unstoppably) with any high PCI load.

      Mind you, this isn't their first PCI chipset. PCI had been out for years; we were just starting to see computers coming out that had no ISA connectors at all.

      That motherboard, as I recall, also had memory issues.

      Almost everything I've owned has been Via because I've been a poor college student or worse, and almost everything I've owned has been crap, except the Asus based computer I have. I bought this cheap laptop with a damned Via chipset, and it is the only laptop (even in the cheap-ass class) that runs so hot it burns you when it is idling. Yup, it's the chipset. I wish to high heaven I could replace it.

      "Not Via", after extensive experience, is now my #1 criterion when buying new computers. I don't even care if they've improved; they screwed up so many times over such a long period of time in such stupid ways that it has to be systematic; unless they restructured if they've been "good lately" it's either luck, or simply that you haven't heard of the errors their stuff has yet.

  2. What about chipsets for AMD? by qwertphobia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    With the cross-licensing agreements with Intel, will VIA be prohibited from transitioning these technologies into their chipsets for the AMD platform?

    --
    Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
  3. Market? by Dragoon412 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder - and I'm not being facetious or sarcastic - is there really much of a market left for this sort of a thing?

    Intel has, sadly, been having its own ass handed to it in the high-performance/gaming segment for a year or more, now. No gaming enthusiast with the slightest bit of hardware knowledge, which is apparently the PT's target market, owns a P4 system these days.

    Unless this PT chipset is designed to cut costs for resellers like Dell and Gateway with their high-end machines (and I use the term loosely), I don't see it having any impact at all.

    1. Re:Market? by ninjagin · · Score: 2, Interesting
      It's a fair question. I think there is a market for it, though.

      That Intel has been having a rough go in high-perf/gaming is pretty obvious, however, as a gaming enthusiast with some hardware knowledge I can say that I'm still running a 2.7 GHz (533) P4 without problems (and I don't OC). Haven't come across anything I could not play.

      I only build a new machine every couple years, but I can say that while many of my pals have built with the newer 800Mhz bus CPUs, they don't really seem to be getting that much improvement over my system. For that matter, the one guy I know with an Athlon64 may have better performance, but he's also had driver and OS problems out the bazoo.

      I think the part that's most interesting to me is what the chipset does for DDR2 and PCI-x moboard configs -- and there is some improvement there. DDR2 and PCI-x are not specific to Intel, and I confess that I'm waiting for a flex-ATX AMD-supportive moboard with PCI-x and DDR2 support. Yet, unless I see some kind of real improvement in performance, I'm unlikely to bite.

      In addition, there was a time when games (every year, it seemed) really needed to be run on the latest and greatest, and I think it's less true, now. So, between less-than-impressive improvements in performance in the hardware, and less-demanding software, I feel less inclined to shell out for the cutting edge, on top of being less-than-excited about Intel's latest offerings.

      I'll wait for more reviews (I like lots of reviews by lots of different people), but I'll also be keeping an eye out for this chipset, just to see how it compares with others over time.

      --
      .. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
  4. Heat reduction? by stanleypane · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I read another article about the PT's linked on the homepage of the El Reg website.. I don't remember the article mentioning much about it's advantages/disadvantages compared to the P4 or Athlon line of processors.

    I do recall the VIA chipsets running at much cooler temperatures than it's competitors. Perhaps they are on to something. With everyone jumping onto the SFF bandwagon, their chips could prove to be quite befitting in that area. I myself wouldn't mind seeing a 2 GHz processor that doesn't need a bohemoth of a heatsink to keep it cool.

    It'd be interesting to see how the temperatures compare to the Pentium-M line.

  5. Linux-friendly? by Quattro+Vezina · · Score: 3, Interesting

    VIA's AMD-based chipsets are among the most Linux-friendly chipsets you'll find. In fact, they're far more Linux-friendly than nForce chipsets. Why should their Intel-based chipsets be any different?

    The next machine I build will have a K8T800 Pro-based mobo, as I trust VIA to make a Linux-friendly chipset more than anyone else.

    --
    I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
  6. Better colours by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/31/1 654235

  7. Re:Will it be up to the quality of past VIA chipse by Kent+Recal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I second that. Had some trouble with some older VIA AMD chipsets and since then never bought VIA again. In particular on the board for my first Athlon the Realtime Clock would jump back and forth under load (under linux that is).
    There was a patch that workarounded it but that one broke other things (like NFS support, USB support and other stuff that depends on timing).
    I'll stay away from VIA for my linux boxes unless I come across a board that has been timetested long enough under linux to be trusted.

  8. Via reminds me by MemoryDragon · · Score: 2, Interesting

    on the dreaded KT133A chipset which could never be stabilized, after burning through two such boards, and constantly having locks and IDE problems, I went for the a much cheaper SiS based board and suddenly that was the first Athlon board I ever owned which ran totally stable. (and still does after almost four years and 3 processor upgrades)
    Via is a no buy criterion for me everytime I see something from Via I try too look for other options. Last time that was, was a few weeks ago, when I ditched my long term plans of waiting for Via to bring out a decent C3 combo and went for a Mac Mini purchase for my silent server needs.