The 150 MHz Project, Part 3

Why Solano?

Intel's 815 chipset has some big advantages, making it more interesting than the two competitors VIA 694X and Intel 440BX:

• Excellent overclockability
• 
  Good motherboards should have no problems running at 166 MHz system speed. Of course you will need highest quality SDRAM.
• Integrated UltraATA/66 or UltraATA/100 Interface, making additional controller chips obsolete. This may not sound very important, but non-standard controllers come with their own BIOS and drivers that might not be available for all operating systems and they are slowing down the boot process with their own status screens and driver initialization.
• Excellent Reliability
• 
  Even though VIA is making tremendous advances, many people still believe that state-of-the-art chipsets are only made by Intel. Intel chipsets are still enjoying the best support.
• Integrated graphics controller
• 
  It may not sound like an advantage, but in case you are not sure which grahics card to buy, you can use the integrated graphics functions for a while.

On the other hand, one should not forget about the negative aspects. The most important is of course the high price, as you have to spend at least $150 for a brand motherboard. Disadvantage number two is of theoretical nature: Being available for only two months, the chance of getting a motherboard with a few bugs is basically there. In contrast, motherboards with the Intel BX or VIA 694X chipset are quite mature today.