VIA's New South Bridge: VT82C686B Supporting UltraATA/100

Features
By published

VIA Vs. Intel

VIA and Intel have two South Bridge solutions each:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
Header Cell - Column 0 IntelVIA
UltraATA/66ICH (82801AA )VT82C686A
UltraATA/100ICH2 (82801BA )VT82C686B

Besides their excellent modularity, VIA chipsets are very popular for their attractive prices. Today motherboards with Intel's 815 chipset can be up to $ 50 more expensive than products with a VIA chipset!

In addition, the 815 is not capable of working with two CPUs - only the 'shop-soiled' BX is. In contrast, VIA's 694X supports one or two Pentium III CPUs.

Dual Athlon systems are still not quite available yet. AMD presented a first working system a few weeks ago, but we don't expect systems to be available until Q1/2001.

Swipe to scroll horizontally
South BridgeIntel ICH2 (82801BA)VIA VT82C686B
combined with:810 (PC100 SDRAM) , 815 (PC133 SDRAM) , 820 or 840 (each RDRAM) for Intel Pentium III, Celeron or VIA Cyrix IIIApollo Pro 133A (VT82C694X) for Intel Celeron, Pentium III, VIA Cyrix III or Apollo KT133 (VT8363) for AMD Athlon, Duron socketed or Apollo KX133 (VT8371) AMD Athlon slot model
IDE InterfaceUltraATA/100 (ICH1 only ATA/66)UATA/100 (VT82C686A only ATA/66)
Multiprocessor Support of North Bridgei820, i840Apollo Pro 133A (VT82C694X)
PackageBGA chipBGA chip
ECC-SupportNo/Yes (820+840 w/ RDRAM only)Yes
FSB Clock66, 100, 133 MHz66, 100, 133 MHz
PCIPCI 2.2, max. 6 SlotsPCI 2.2, max. 6 Slots
I/O2x serial, 1x parallel2x serial, 1x parallel, floppy, keyboard, mouse, LM78
USBUp to 4 PortsUp to 4 Ports
Pricingapprox. $ 45approx. $ 28
TOPICS