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Date |
: Apr 2nd, 2002 |
| Category |
: Chipset |
| Manufacturer |
: Various |
| Author |
: Jin-Wei Tioh |
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The introduction of the P4X266 chipset sparked a legal uproar between VIA and Intel. Intel claims VIA had no right to use the P4 bus, whereas VIA claims that they already have that right due to Intel's previous agreement with S3 (which was acquired by VIA). But enough of law, this isn't Harvard. What we're more interested in is the technical aspect of the chipset.
It shouldn't have been all that difficult for VIA to come up with the design for the P4X266. It is the exact Pentium 4 equivalent of the KT266 Athlon chipset. The North Bridge uses the same AGP 4X controller, V-Link interface and DDR memory controller as the KT266 chipset. Probably the only unique part of the P4X266 is the Pentium 4 bus interface in place of the Athlon bus interface.
As suggested by the North Bridge, the P4X266 is also a two chip solution. The South Bridge used is the VT8233, sporting support for Ultra-ATA 100 and 6 USB ports. The VT8233 also features VIA's integrated network controller, and for brand name Ethernet support, the VT8233C has an integrated 3Com controller. The datapath between the two components is VIA's V-Link, an 8-bit bus having a peak bandwidth of 266MB/s. Like many of VIA's chipset, the P4X266 support asynchronous operation of the memory bus and FSB. This is a required feature due to the Pentium 4's FSB being clocked at 100MHz (quad-pumped to 400MHz), while DDR266 (or PC2100) SDRAM runs off a 133MHz clock.
The VIA P4X266 chipset test platform used was a PE11-S motherboard from the VIA Platform Solutions Division. The PE11-S is a solid contender as a motherboard, having good layout, good stability (no crashes observed during tests) and feature set : 3 DIMM slots and 5 PCI slots (all full-length capable).
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