Conclusion:
Preliminary benchmarks should always be taken with a grain of salt, but in general one can expect at least moderate improvement by the time production samples are available. Considering how strong systems with the new VIA chipsets benchmarked as compared to systems with various Intel chipsets, good things should be expected. Even at this stage of development, the VIA chipsets can put up numbers comaparable or better than the competition!
The StepUp Technology and Flex Express architecture address two key aspects of the current P4 market, the universally slow transition to PCI-Express graphics cards and DDR-II memory. These boards definitely support these new technologies, but allow manufacturers to choose to integrate either or both AGP and PCI-Express, as well as DDR (266, 333, 400) and DDR-II (400, 533, 667).
The new chipsets from VIA will allow the manufacturers to decide what to include so as to best serve their market. Boards for entry level systems may feature just an AGP slot and DDR memory for cost purposes only. Enthusiast boards may feature AGP and PCI-E slots, as well as DDR and DDR-II slots. Boards with both sets of features included will allow users to run both AGP and PCI-E graphics cards at the same time for dual display capabilities, but they must choose to run either DDR or DDR-II at any one time.
All of this is great news for users looking to upgrade a current system. With many solutions, getting a new motherboard and processor currently also means getting a new graphics card and memory, with the latter two components easily being the more expensive of the four at this point. StepUp seems to be the key term, allowing users to spread their upgrade out over a period of time, moving in steps that are comfortable to them.
The one key thing to watch for is whether VIA can incorporate SLI, or something equivalent, on motherboards with the new chipsets. The technology is already there, and hopefully the 'business issues' can be resolved to allow its use.
Pros:
• Full support for 1066MHz FSB
• Full support for DDR-II 667
• StepUp Technology allows dual/single channel DDR or DDR-II on same board
• Flex Express universal graphics interface allows multiple configurations of PCI-Express and AGP on same board
• Competitive priced when compared to i916 and i925 based motherboards
• Integrated VIA Vinyl audio
Cons:
• Business issues preventing the implementation of SLI
Please drop by the BigBruin.Com forum and feel free to discuss this preview.
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