Then and Now: Athlon Platforms Compared

Often Overlooked: The Platform

The fact that an important part of increasing performance has to do with chipsets and memory technology is not often discussed. Advertising continues to give you very little of the crucial information that you need in order to be able to evaluate the performance of a motherboard in a complete system.

It's not just factors like the speed of the FSB or the memory that play a role here - chipsets can operate at very different speeds even with memory types that are seemingly the same. A good example of this is provided by VIA with its KT133/ KT133A, as well as with the KT266/ KT266A. With KT333, the first version was completely omitted, so from the beginning, it was the second version that was behind the name "KT333." Naturally, there are sometimes significant performance differences between the various manufacturers as well.

References: From KT133A To nForce2

We won't be presenting you with all of the chipsets in detail here, as that is not the purpose of this article. Instead, we provide you with a few links that will provide you with extensive information on each of the chipsets.

The Three Musketeers: Athlon Platforms For 133 MHz FSB

VIA's DDR-Runner For Athlon - The Apollo KT266 Chipset
VIA Apollo KT266 Revisited - Much Ado About Nothing
A Real Nail-Biter: Four Boards With ALi Magik 1
Computex: AMD Releases 760MP Chipset For Dual AthlonMP
There's No Stopping Them: SiS Beats AMD & Co
Accelerating Athlon: VIA Releases KT266A Chipset
DDR333 For Athlon: VIA KT333 vs. KT266A
Perfect Timing: DDR Performance Analysis
Full Power: NVIDIA Attacks With nForce2
First Look Exclusive: VIA KT400 for AMD Athlon
Athlon On The Fast Lane: Three Motherboards with nForce2-Chipset and Dual-Channel DDR
More nForce2: New Boards from Abit, Biostar and MSI