VIA Getting Ready for Pentium 4 with 800MHz Bus

by Anna Filatova
12/17/2002 | 11:05 PM

Having announced the transfer of the Pentium 4 processor family to faster 800MHz bus in Q2 2003, Intel caught third chipset makers unawares, since they surely hadn’t expected a move like that. Among these unlucky guys appeared also VIA, which was forced to update its Pentium 4 chipset plans accordingly as soon as possible.

So, as a result of all these changes on Intel’s roadmap, VIA invented a new P4X400A solution and made a few changes to the names and features two more chipsets, which are now known as PT600 and PT800. Let’s have a closer look at these innovations now:

• P4X400A. This is an updated version of the well-known P4X400. The new chipset will feature official support for DDR400 SDRAM and 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus. The chipset samples are expected to be ready in Q1 2003.
• PT600 (former P4X600). This is a dual-channel chipset for Pentium 4 processors with the supported bus frequencies of 400/533/800MHz. It also works with 128bit (two 64bit channels) memory access for DDR266/DDR333/DDR400 SDRAM. Besides that, this chipset also supports Quad Band Memory from Kentron. Also I would like to point out that the chipset boasts already implemented ECC support. The solution works with AGP 8x interface and is supplied with VIA VT8235 South Bridge connected to the North Bridge via the V-Link 8x bus. The product is already sampling and the shipments are expected to start before the end of the year.
• PT800 (former P4X800). This solution is a continuation of the PT600 chipset. It supports Pentium 4 processors with 400/533/800MHz bus, however, the memory subsystem can be built not only with DDR-I and QBM memory, but also with DDR-II SDRAM. The chipset also supports AGP 8x and features faster Ultra V-Link bus between the bridges. The South Bridge used is VIA VT8237 chip implementing ATA/133, 2 SerialATA-150 ports, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 10/100Mbit Ethernet, 6 PCI slots and 6-channel AC’97 sound. PT800 samples are expected to appear in Q1 2003, and the mass production should start in H1 2003.