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Post to SlashdotVIA Technologies formally announced its KT880 chipset on Thursday. The introduction accelerates competition between NVIDIA and VIA for the fastest core-logic for AMD Athlon XP-based platforms.
The newly uncovered VIA KT880 chipset is nothing else, but a chipset for AMD Athlon XP chips with dual-channel memory controller, VIA’s answer to NVIDIA’s high-end nForce2 Ultra 400 offerings that have been on the market for about a year already. Performance of the novelty is not yet clear, but what is essential is that VIA KT880 packs support for more I/O features, such as native Serial ATA-150 controller, than its competitor.
VIA’s KT880 North Bridge is able to work with various Socket A AMD Athlon XP processors with 200MHz, 266MHz, 333MHz and 400MHz FSB. The chip packs dual-channel PC2100, PC2700 and PC3200 DDR SDRAM memory controller that actually supports more memory than AMD’s seventh generation processors can address – up to 8GB. According to the company’s spokesperson, VIA is not going to develop chipsets for AMD Athlon XP processors with PCI Express x16 lane for graphics, thus, KT880 sports AGP 8x and is likely to become VIA’s last Socket A product.
VIA KT880 is to be paired with VIA VT8237 I/O controller supporting up to 6 PCI slots, 8 USB 2.0 ports, integrates 2-channel ATA-33/66/100/133 controller, features 2 Serial ATA-150 ports with RAID support, 6-channel audio-solution, MC97 Modem and other important input/output means. Later during the year KT880 will also be able to work with VIA’s VT8251 South Bridge and acquire 4 Serial ATA-150 ports along with PCI Express x1 lane and Gigabit Ethernet controller.
VIA said it had approximately 70-80% of the chipset market for AMD Athlon XP processors recently. The vast majority of the remaining part of the market is commanded by NVIDIA and its high-performance nForce2 chipsets. In case the KT880 is able to successfully compete with NVIDIA’s product and is priced more affordably, VIA may see some success with it.
A number of the world’s popular mainboard manufacturers have confirmed new AMD Athlon XP flagship mainboard designs featuring the VIA KT880 chipset, including ABIT, Acorp, ASRock, ASUS, Chaintech, DFI, EPoX, Gigabyte, Jetway, MSI, Soltek, and SOYO, clearly demonstrating the strong industry support for the platform.
Mainboard based on VIA KT880 are expected to be available soon.
