Last Passing Maneuver: Tualatin 1266 With 512 kB Versus Athlon And P4

Motherboards: Hardly Different On The Outside

In spite of changes to the pin layout, smaller core voltages and reworked chipsets, the switch to the Tualatin was made easy for motherboard manufacturers. Hardly anything needs to be changed in the layout, because farsighted companies have already built in voltage regulators with a greater range. The chipset remains completely pin-compatible, regardless whether it is an Intel 815 or VIA Apollo Pro 133 (A or T). Only the circuits for the 10 new pins need to be correctly assigned - a simple step in practice.

Hardly any difference can be seen between this MSI board with 815EP chipset and its forerunner.

The manufacturer does the same thing with this variation of the VIA equivalent.

On the 815EP board, MSI marks the Tualatin support by adding T after the model number.

The VIA 694T Pro variation additionally gets a sticker for socket 370.

Uwe Scheffel