|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Via has massed their fame by way of developing chipsets for both the Intel and AMD platforms forging ever further ahead by the serious market demands of this ever evolving industry. Back in the day VIA chipsets boards supported both rivals CPU's as the Socket 7 interface could use the Pentium and AMD chips on the same motherboard making things a whole lot simpler for the common Joe. VIA has come up with some very viable chipsets in their day and working with their partners many very popular boards have been based around these chipsets allowing VIA to become one of the only true competitors against the Intel giant. One of the most memorable boards to date was the FIC VA-503+, this board was so widely used and coveted that it went out of production and then had to be remanufactured to meet the extreme market demand that became very prevalent when production initially halted. In recent news VIA and Intel long time at war over patent rights have finally reached an undisclosed agreement as to who gets what in one of the longest legal battles in chipset history. As the market evolves and changes we will see many players who are not on the cutting edge get left on the roadside as the dust of progress takes the PC from an enthusiast's machine to a more consumer and commodity type product such as your stereo and TV. In the early fifties having just a single black and white TV was a major accomplishment and highly costly venture and now most homes have two or three color TV's.
How all this will turn out is still in motion but in the here and now VIA has come up with another chipset geared at the lower end of the spectrum that allows for space saving system designs with enough embedded peripherals to be a self sufficient all in one unit. The chipset consists of two major parts the NB CLE266 VT8606 and the SB VT8235. In the chart provided below you can exactly what part of the chipset controls what and its major functions. This is a very flexible chipset that will most likely become one of the new players in the growing market of small form factor systems finding their way to the marketplace. Combining a fully integrated video processing feature set, a 2D/3D graphics engine and an ultra efficient VIA DDR memory controller ensures solid performance.
The VIA Apollo CLE266 Chipset is designed to help enhance high quality digital video streaming and DVD playback in a new generation of fan less, small form factor PCs and IA devices. The VIA Apollo CLE266 North Bridge is connected to the latest South Bridge technology, the VT8235. This works through a 4X V-Link connection to the North Bridge transferring data at 266MB/s, twice the speed of the conventional PCI bus. This will enable CLE266 based systems and devices to take advantage of the integrated support for 6 USB 2.0 ports with 40 times more bandwidth than USB 1.1, as well as ATA-133, the fastest available IDE interface. Additional features include integrated VIA MAC for 10/100Mbps Ethernet, integrated PCI support, 6 Channel Surround Sound AC-97 audio and the MC-97 modem.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
